


The Vault Job

by WaldosAkimbo



Series: Aim to Fire [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Bank Robbery, Fluff, Gen, Kraglin Whump, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags May Change, Yondad, beating up the characters, father/son relationship, remember when Dad was a Space Pimp, well look it's the Kree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-11-21 15:03:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11359878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaldosAkimbo/pseuds/WaldosAkimbo
Summary: Yondu has agreed to take on a job stealing something for the Nova Corps. Of course there's a tight spot in getting to the actual vault and there's only one person on the ship who can fit. A greased up Kraglin! No, I'm just kidding, it's Peter. Of course it's Peter.This is following 2 years after the adventure they had in Aim to Fire.





	1. Ya Ain't Gettin' Any Smaller

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where we first hear what the damn job is that Yondu agreed to.

“We need this.” Yondu sneered, hands flat on the table as he perked his shoulders up to his earlobes.

“You know it’s a fools run,” Kraglin answered. He had sense to look aloof about it, hip pressed there against the table as he cleaned a bit of dirt from under his nails. “You _know_ it’s pretty much a dead ringer suicide mission.”

“Haven’t had enough units scraped together to fix that damn converter. Oxygenator’s gonna blow on us ‘fore we reach the next station.”

“I can getcha a converter, sir.”

“Not that way, y’can’t,” Yondu answered and gave him a look, a real mean look with that red eye bugging out underneath his blue-brow scowl.

“I’m jus’ sayin’. That Sister of Vixtira were willin’ to pay a _lot_. And she said it was only fer the one night.”

“Yeah, but you seen the claws on that Sister? She’d a cut you up like a ribbon, Kraggles. One night means last night with them Vixtira gals. You _know_ that, so don’t go on about suicide missions.”

“Offer stands,” Kraglin said with a shrug. “Else just say yer jealous.”

“I ain’t jealous.” Yondu tapped the holographic print hovering like a ghost above the table. “I don’t like it much, and I _know_ you don’t either. But it’s the best damn deal we got. Least it’ll get us to the places we need to go. Assemble the men. We’ll assign details.”

Kraglin turned back to look down at the blueprints and finally waved his hand over the obvious lines crossing through the building that would take them to the vault.

“And how’re we—”

“I said to assemble them.”

Kraglin jutted his chin out, facing the man he’d kill and be killed for without much else in the way of bargaining. Man he respected. Hell, man he _loved_. This, if anything, was reason to argue about the idiotic job Yondu went and agreed to. There was another way to go what didn’t involve a client who’d just as soon scrap them next to a dying star and save them all a trip to the Kyln. This was something close to pride what fueled Yondu to accept when they could just patch up and head out of the system. Get far enough that they wouldn’t have to think about them fuckin’ Kree hangin’ a blade over their necks.

But he was the captain. There was only so much could be said and argued and bartered here. If he went and struck a deal, well, couldn’t find a place clear on the other side of the universe that might save ‘em. Kraglin nodded and started for the bridge.

“Hey,” said Yondu, reaching across to grab Kraglin’s forearm. Kraglin looked down at his captain’s hand round his arm. “I know it’s the only way. You know it too. If he’d listen, I woulda asked already.”

Yondu wasn’t going to say the name. He wasn’t going to mention Stakar or the 99 other Ravager factions what turned their back on Yondu and his crew. Sure, Yondu broke the Code. They broke the Code, hells to them. So did others. Kraglin would put money on it that this were nothin’ but makin’ an example. A hard example, too. Wouldn’t leave Yondu’s mouth, not now, not ever, but it was there in his face. Stakar casting them out tore at Yondu. It was there on his tongue, it was there in his eyes, and Kraglin wasn’t a complete brain dead moron to miss it.

“Aye, Captain,” Kraglin answered. He waited til Yondu released him before he was out the door. Once he was in the hallway, just as the door slid shut with a hiss, he muttered, “Fuckin’ Kree.”

“Yeah,” Yondu said to the table. He brushed his hand down the top of his fin, or, more accurately, the short replacement implant that was carved into his skull. He sighed and it felt like years were already startin’ to pile up on his shoulders. “Fuckin’ Kree.”

Weren’t just the Kree to curse. Fuck Irani Rael too. She knew. That’s what was so damn infuriating ‘bout the whole damn deal.

Pardons. Hells to pardons.

*

There was a crackle, a high-static whine that peeled through the ship before Kraglin barked out an order across the Eclector’s audio system. Peter sat up in his bunk. He pulled the headphones off his ears in case it was some Code Red nonsense like he remembered on the USS Enterprise on, like, every other episode, honestly. Funny how true that turned out to be once he was out in space.

There was something about a job. Whole crew was getting assembled in the hangar bay, since that was just about the only place they could fit everyone. Meant it was a big job. Meant it was an _important_ job. Peter clicked off his Walkman and clipped it snug on his belt before he leapt off the hard cot and raced out of his room.

“Hey,” Peter called after the first Ravager he saw outside his bunk. “What’s going on?”

“Sounds like we’re stealing somethin’,” said Oblo, raking a hand through his long greasy hair.

“Well, yeah, but we’re always stealing something,” Peter answered, and fell in line behind the Krylorian.

“Not always,” Oblo offered.

He didn’t slow down, but he wasn’t intentionally trying to lose Peter in the crowd either. Oblo was nice enough. Not that anyone was truly _nice_ amongst the Ravagers. Yondu wouldn’t allow it. Two years already and Peter learned, if anything, you might put a smile on your face and talk a big game, but you kept your hand on whatever weapon was tucked into the small of your back. Course, nobody ever really gave Peter a weapon, so he was figuring that out too.

“Well, sure, not _always_. But, come on. What’re we stealing?”

“We?” Oblo asked and laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think Captain’s lettin’ you run with us just yet.”

“Hey, I’ve been learning all the controls on the M-ship, right? So, I _think_ I can be helpful,” said Peter smugly before he looked down and muttered, “More helpful than scrubbing the deck _again_.”

“Yeah.” Oblo knocked his elbow into Peter’s shoulder. “But yer real good at it.”

“Whatever.”

“Got them tiny hands.”

“Whatever!”

“Only one of us who can get into all the little nooks and crannies and—”

“Oh my god!” Peter threw his hands up towards the ceiling. “Whatever, Oblo! Stop!”

Oblo laughed again and ruffled Peter’s hair, which was starting to get a little rustier colored as he grew older. The Terran dodged Oblo’s sloppy affection and raced off into the crowd, snaking between legs as he ran ahead to find a suitable place to watch. If he wasn’t careful, he’d be shoved to the back and forgotten and there were only so many places above where he might watch. Plus, they were hard to get to. It would be an ordeal. No good.

Practically everyone who wasn’t asleep or doing something else were all crammed in by the time Kraglin called for some semblance of order. He barked over the crowd and Peter could see his Mohawk bobbing round like a cockatiel as he went through the Ravagers. There was no room between legs anymore as everyone pressed in to hear. They were all a bunch of gross grimy pirates, but it always seemed like they had to somehow be touching each other, have a hand on a shoulder as the bare minimum. They knocked into each other with gusto, clapping backs or knocking skulls. More often than not they were all passing out in piles like they _had_ to canoodle or else they wouldn’t get a wink of sleep—booze helped. So it was a mess of limbs interlocking like a wall that forced Peter towards the edge of the room.

“Screw this,” he muttered, and started climbing up the closest M-ship, grumbling as he went. He _knew_ it was going to come down to this, he just didn’t want to do it. The M-ship was kinda slippery and if he fell, he’d never hear the end of it.

“Captain’s gonna talk!”

Kraglin must’ve found a bench nearby as he stood atop it, hands on his hips, looking around for anyone who decided they weren’t in a listening mood. He clocked Peter up on the M-ship and his mouth twisted a little, a thought corkscrewing through his entire body before he turned again and left it alone.

“We finally gonna do a decent job?” someone asked and others threw out a grunt in agreement. “Gonna get _paid_?”

“Yeah, you’ll get paid,” Yondu answered as he pushed Kraglin off the perch and took his place. Because of course he had to stand above everyone. Well, almost everyone. Peter was so far ranked number one in height from his perch on the M-Ship wing. “You do this job right, we all get paid.”

“What is it?”

“Got a vault job, boys,” Yondu said with his crooked smile. “Seems there’s a man out these ways with too many valuables to his name and we been asked to remove him from said accoutrements.”

There were some twerked eyebrows, so Kraglin said, “We’re gonna take his stuff.”

Nods and approvals rippled through the crowd. Some of them whispering conspiratorially amongst themselves. There was more shoving and pushing. Elbows in ribcages. Peter wondered when they might all just hold hands and sway in a circle and sing Kumbaya.

“How much we gettin’?” someone asked.

“I got word there’s close to a million units in it for us, plus whatever we manage to swipe free from his grounds. The real prize, the one what we’re gonna fence after this, is some shiny bauble kept in what I assume they think is a high security safe. I got blueprints of the whole grounds. They got some Sakaarans protecting it, but I figured none of ya were ‘fraid of carvin’ up any o’ them rotten-faced bugs.” The enthusiastic roar from the Ravagers answered that well enough. “So, while I got men drilling through this mansion, sets us up with a nice distraction for the real treasure. Alls we need is someone small enough to fit in them vents.”

Nobody except Kraglin had seen where Peter was at just yet. Nobody thought of him either. Instead, they were arguing who to grease up and shove into the vent system. Most were pointing at Kraglin himself, who smiled a distant ugly smile as they were talking over one another.

“I mean, it’s the best we got,” someone said.

“Nobody asked yet who this guy is?”

“So? We gotta know everyone we steal from?”

“No. I’m just sayin’.”

“Yeah, well, if there’s anything around the vault, least we know he can handle it.”

“I’m just sayin’, we should know.”

“We can’t put him in, he’s too tall.”

“Shot up like a Harlaxian Hissing Vine.”

“Who _cares_ how tall he is, long as he can fit.”

“I’m just sayin’. We should ask who—”

The captain whistled and everyone clamped up. Many clapped a hand over their mouths. Peter could swear as they straightened they puckered their butts, like letting any bit of air out either end was going to make the captain send his arrow through their guts. The arrow wasn’t even out of its holster, but the threat was there. It was real.

“We’re taking from Gor’Tun. He’s a—”

“A fuckin’ Kree?” someone shouted over Yondu. Heads turned to the agitated dissenting voice amongst them. “Yer tellin’ us we’re gonna steal something from a Kree. Honest. With all that shit goin’ on between them and Xandar. A _wealthy_ Kree, too. Is he Blue? He aid to what’s his face, the one who’s been ruling them. Ronan? He has to be, right, if he’s—”

“Yeah, he’s Blue, so what?” Yondu shouted back and flashed his teeth over at Vorker. “So _what_? You wanna back out? You can back out, but then you ain’t gettin’ nothin’ less someone wants to hand over a piece o’ their share.”

“ _Fuck_ share,” said Vorker. “I just don’t wanna risk gettin’ cut up by them scientists. Ain’t gonna be no experiment.”

“Yer already an experiment,” someone said and forked their thumb up at his robotic eye. Vorker just sneered, but didn’t have an answer.

“This the job we got,” Yondu said. “I’m just lookin’ for whoever is up to the challenge.”

He shrugged, dismissing the obvious cowardice of Vorker, which was probably echoed with a few others around them. But they didn’t see Yondu’s eye twitch or the little glimmer through his implant like Peter did. Yondu knew what he was asking, but he was being his usual jackass self about it. Act tough, shoot first, leave it at that. If there’s anything soft, best to bury it down deep until it suffocates. Peter put his hands on his knees and huffed.

“Oh, we’re up for it,” said the ugliest thing Peter had ever seen in his young albeit adventurous life. Taserface wheeled his yellow eyes around and others were nodding, either scared into submission by him or just as crazy as he was. “That still don’t answer how we’re going through the vents.”

“Yeah! Is it gonna be Kraglin or what?”

“Nope,” said Yondu and put his hands on his hips, his classic stance whenever he needed command of the room. Made him boxy and it was an even, sturdy stance but, most important, it showed off the holster to his Yaka arrow. “We got one amongst us small enough to fit inside.”

“Who?” Taserface asked. Even so far away, Peter could practically smell his rank breath when he said it.

“Alright, Quill, get down from there,” said Kraglin as he waved over towards the M-ship. He flapped his hand, like he was cranking a wheel that would draw Peter to him. Peter sat up on the wing, looking around. “Yeah. C’mon.”

“The Terran.” Taserface was laughing, a low and dark chortle that was picked up by some of the other Ravagers.

“Up here, Boy,” said Yondu and pointed at the spot next to him.

Peter had to shove through the crowd as nobody thought to make any room for him. He tripped over someone’s boots and stumbled. They laughed, jeered, and his ears were bright red once he was up at the front next to the captain. Felt like he’d been called in front of his class and it made his stomach flip.

“He’s the only one small enough who can fit,” said Yondu, putting a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “That, and if anything happens, he’ll have a blaster on ‘im. Boy can shoot anything that crosses him.”

They knew it, too. Peter had proven he was a good shot. Decent, at the very least. There were a few times when they were simply robbing a bank and he was left in a market with Horuz or Tullk where he got to practice, but the only reason he was wearing flames was cause he’d shot a slaver square in the face during a fight.

“Uh, okay,” said Peter, who felt a little nervous now he was in the center of the Ravagers. He saw Oblo there in the crowd, who looked just as shocked. The other Ravager recovered quickly, smiling, giving Peter one of them Terran thumbs up for approval.

Peter knew most of them by name, but that’d always been one-on-one interactions. Now, surrounded, Peter felt a little bit shy. Lots of teeth there and lots of them who had said, to his face or otherwise, how it was best to just serve him up in a casserole and be done with him.

“I, uh. I haven’t done, like, a big mission before,” said Peter, and looked up at Yondu.

“Time you did,” Yondu said, like Peter hadn’t been earning his keep or something. “Yer the only one small enough. And ya ain’t gettin’ any smaller.”

“Okay, but, like, am I gonna be—”

“Yep,” said Yondu and clapped him hard, almost knocking the wind out of him. He laughed. The Ravagers laughed. Kraglin didn’t laugh, but that’s only cause he was busy being mindful of the crew, so he had that serious “I’m paying attention” look on his face. If anything, Peter could rely on Kraglin to turn the same attention to his vitals on a data pad once they were robbing the place. “How’s that sound then, boys? You ready to steal some shit?”

Oh how they were.

A plan was put into place as they showed a map of this guy Gor’Tun’s mansion. It  was tucked into an outpost for the Kree on a paradise-looking planet called Tullika. Cannons were marked, security protocols looked over, stats of any distress calls in the waves bouncing in the system that would tell the Ravagers if they were on high alert or not. Peter didn’t follow it except for the parts that concerned him, and soon he was shoved on over to Kraglin as they fought for who would be leading the first assault. Apparently stealth wasn’t in the works for this part of the plan. They figured gun power and overwhelming numbers would be the best to go. Peter thought that was just stupid, but he didn’t know. He  took up a post next to Kraglin and watched, wide-eyed.

“Uh,” said Peter up at the Xandarian, who was still staring out at the crew. “So. What’s a Kree then?”

Kraglin jerked his eyes down towards the boy and slowly shook his head.

“Yep, alright,” said Peter.

He fumbled with the clip of his Walkman, wishing desperately to put on the headphones and just listen to his music until all of this planning business was done with. He had been yapping about how he wanted to try going on a mission _._ Something where he was actually _useful_ to the team instead of someone to carry loot after all the real work was done. Oh, big tough Peter, _I’m ready to do a real Ravager mission. I can steal things_. Jeeze. Now it seemed stupid, that whole dream. Just sort’ve felt like this was too much responsibility too quick and it made Peter’s heart race. He hummed a few notes out of habit. It was loud enough that only Kraglin could hear him over the ruckus. Before he started rocking on his feet or wringing his hands, Kraglin reached down and patted Peter’s shoulder, quick and gentle to steady him. It sorta almost helped.

“Am I gonna be in trouble when we do this?” Peter whispered up at Kraglin. Kraglin didn’t return the look. He just shrugged his shoulders, patted him again, and pointed over at someone who was starting to fight instead of paying attention to the captain’s plan. That… _didn’t_ help. Peter scrunched his fists up by his head and pressed his temples, waiting and wondering. It’d be fine. The whole thing would be fine. Yondu wouldn’t intentionally get him killed. He knew what he was doing. He picked decent jobs. They weren’t, like, desperate or anything. It would be _fine_.

Still, since everyone was so busy either brawling, yelling, or negotiating, Peter slunk on back towards the closest M-ship, crawled up onto the wing, and put the headphones down over his ears. He pressed play before anyone noticed he was missing and closed his eyes once the music was surrounding him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently there are two types of Kree and the blue ones, although the minority, are the "pure" Kree and rule the society. So said wiki, so, take that with whatever grain of salt you prefer.


	2. Every Breath You Take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Kree planet doesn't have the same atmosphere as Peter's used to. So they need to fix him up with something if he's going to be able to breathe while getting to the vault. Kraglin has just the thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry this took so long. Went on vacation over the week of the fourth (cause it was my birthday, eyyy happy birthday to me) but we're back in the saddle again. Let's do this!

The Eclector seemed to be abuzz with new life. Everyone was doing whatever it was they did as their little pre-steal ritual, whether it was important stuff like checking gear, resupplying their ammo packs, checking in with the Tailor to make sure their Ravager jackets were up to snuff, or really weird stuff like grooming each other’s hair or fighting over what looked like a balled up sock. Peter swam through the crowd per his usual route. It was under feet, away from elbows, and ducking out of reach of an errant claw or knife. Lots of blades were flashed in the galley. Almost had a “that’s not a knife, _this_ is a knife” moment between Hyvar and R’x. Peter saw a blade slice right in front of his face before he stumbled back into the solid mass of a familiar pink-skinned Ravager.

“Hey! I was just lookin’ fer ya!” said Oblo and flashed a grin with a staple of Ravager metal teeth. “Look at you! Not scrubbin’ no decks today, right?”

“Yeah,” said Peter, who sounded more put-out than how he really felt, which was just on the edge of terrified. It was better this way. Sometimes they liked to cheer him up when he was pouting. Sometimes they knocked him on his back and told him to suck it up, but Oblo usually didn’t, so, it was how Peter decided to play it. He scrubbed the back of his head and shrugged a shoulder.

“What’s the matter then?” asked Oblo.

“Oh, I dunno.” Peter scuffed his foot on the ground. He was absolutely milking in. “Just thought it was gonna be something really _cool_ , y’know? But it’s just crawling through vents. I do that, like, all the time.”

“Oh it’s gonna be great. Yer probably gonna have to dodge lasers and kill some guards once yer down there.”

“What?” Peter’s throat started to constrict before Oblo struck him on the back.

“Nah!” he said and doubled over with laughter. “By the stars, could you imagine? That’s ridiculous! You’re just going through the vents!”

“Yeah!” Peter answered, defensive. “I know! Don’t make it sound like, I dunno, like a _death sentence._ ”

“It’s not. Like you said, you do it all the time. Yeah, cause yer the best at cleaning them,” said Oblo and laughed again, barely able to compose himself. “You know what we used to do?”

“What?”

“We used to take Kraglin, right, when he was fresh, and we—”

“Pete!”

“Hey hey, we was just talkin’ about you!” said Oblo as Kraglin waltzed through the galley, finishing up whatever drink he’d managed to steal off the nearest table. It had to be sour because he was fighting with his tongue, his face starting to pinch and squinted down into the cup before he tossed it back towards the table. Kraglin came up to them and Oblo thumped him on the chest. “Remember when we put you in the vents?”

“Yeah,” said Kraglin absently. “Seemed y’all was keen on repeating it today, too.”

“Woulda been funny,” said Oblo, tempting Kraglin to sock him in the jaw.

“Well…” said Kraglin and waffled his hand before he pointed down at Peter. “Hey. Need ya for a second. Got somethin’ important fer the mission.”

“Important?” Peter was excited. Genuinely excited. It was a treat to get something, especially if it was _important_ , and he couldn’t help but wonder what this gift might be. But he was quick to squash that down and give Kraglin a skeptical eye. He had learned early, act aloof and just a little callous and make it a joke in order to save yourself. “What’s so important, huh?”

“You come with me and you’ll prob’ly find out,” said Kraglin and hooked his hand over his shoulder as a wave to follow before he went back the way he came.

Peter checked with Oblo, who was thrusting another thumbs up at him, wagging the tips of his thumbs near his cheeks before he laughed. His face was flushed as he slumped down at a table and picked up the oily-looking drink he’d been enjoying before Peter found him. The Ravager next to him knocked shoulders and they both clanked their mugs together, shouting something at the ceiling and then chugging their drinks.

“Well _he’s_ gonna have a headache,” Kraglin was muttering as Peter caught up to him. They went down towards the medic bay and stopped off in a supply closet. Kraglin opened one of the panels in the wall and started rummaging around in a crate. “Gonna hafta put him on a cannon if he’s gonna…hey, Pete! Good, come ‘ere.”

“I am here,” said Peter. “What’s this yer giving me?”

“Somethin’ important, like I said. Got it rigged up to yer ‘sensitive Terran system.’”

Kraglin said this in a fluty voice, wagging his head back and forth like it was a whole ordeal to recalibrate something so Peter could use it. Like he was the _only_ Terran ever in space, which he discovered wasn’t even true! Just, y’know, not exactly as common as Xandarians, sure, maybe even _rare_ , but Kraglin didn’t have to be a dick about it, is all. He crossed his arms and stood back.

“What?” Kraglin asked without looking over his shoulder.

“Nothin’,” said Peter.

“Then don’t pout.”

“I’m not!”

“Ya are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yeah, ya are.”

“Oh my _god_ , Kraglin, just—”

“Ah, found it.”

Kraglin thrusted his fist out and capped Peter’s comeback, which wasn’t much of a comeback at all, really. It was just a roundabout conversation that would drift in and out at the same point each time he and Kraglin managed to talk to each other for more than five minutes.

Peter tried to stand on his tip toes and see what Kraglin had, but it was wrapped up tight in his fist. He even crouched down to Peter’s level and gently grabbed his shoulder. He was about to reach up to the side of his head and plug something in when Peter braced his neck and jerked out of Kraglin’s grip.

“No, what is that,” said Peter, holding himself.

He’d had lots of things stabbed into him, the translator being the first and foremost. There was a biometric system implanted by the Doc, an alien set of handcuffs, a syringe with a tracking bug on it from a guild of thieves who thought they could use Peter to get to Yondu, and two different sets of teeth from bat-like creatures that made him throw up this green and purple sludge for what felt like forever.

“Listen, I know ya don’t rightly know what them fuckin’ Kree folks are,” said Kraglin, forcing the words “fuckin’ Kree” out between his teeth, “but planets that they inhabit have lots of nitrogen so’s they can breathe.”

“Yeah?” asked Peter. “So?”

“So.” Kraglin motioned vaguely at the ship around them. “So, we got a pretty even mix here. Mostly anyone who can breathe what we need is good.” Peter felt himself intimately aware of his need to breathe then, and consciously pumped his lungs full of air. “Yep. Like, say you went with us down to Xandar, right? Fine fer you. Fine fer me. Fine fer the Captain even, and he don’t even look like us, right? But Tullika’s gonna be a sight more poisonous than yer used to.”

“Poisonous?” Peter quaked and Kraglin squinted his eyes as he watched the kid go paler than usual. But Peter swallowed and rolled his eyes, if only to stop himself from crying. His tongue felt a little thick, so he cleared his throat. “I mean. More and more you guys talk about it…sounds like it’s gonna be, like…dangerous.”

“Some,” said Kraglin with a shrug. He finally held his palm out flat and showed Peter what he’d fetched from the supply crate. “But this’ll help.”

The contraption didn’t look to be more than an inch or two long and about as thick as Peter’s pinky. The dull silvery metal curved slightly, ending in two small red buttons. Kraglin waited for Peter to poke it once before he offered to plug it in again. Peter jerked his head back out of habit before he finally relented, shoulders tense but still as Kraglin fitted the device just behind Peter’s ear. It fit snuggly against the hinge of his jaw. It didn’t sting, so it seemed that nothing had actually penetrated his skin. Peter wondered briefly how it was staying in place. It hummed just a little, just the edge of recognition, and it felt warmer than he was expecting.

“Right, that should do it,” said Kraglin, nodding once. He fondled the piece again to be sure it was absolutely snug before tapping once on the button closest to Peter’s earlobe. “Ya feel that?”

“U-huh,” Peter answered.

“Good.”

Kraglin pressed it and suddenly the world disappeared as something metal materialized in front of his face. The mask seemed to build in pixels wrapping around his head, leaping up over his eyes and forming two perfectly circular red caps of glass. Peter whipped backwards to get away from it, his throat constricting again as the mask completely encased his head except for his neck and the top of his skull, leaving a tuft of hair. In his panic he started prying at the sides, grappling with anything he might get his fingers under to free himself. The air was hot, almost burning in his nostrils and chest.

“Hey, hey, hold on,” said Kraglin, trying to grab Peter as he thrashed about.

“Get it off!” Peter screamed, yanking at the edge under his chin. “Kraglin! Get it off! Get it off get it off get it off!”

“Hold on,” said Kraglin. He finally had Peter’s wrists and held on so he wouldn’t toss himself back into a wall or beam himself on anything in the supply closet and knock his brains loose. “Hey, I’m right here, Pete. Y’hear me?”

Peter was panting hard, his chest rising and falling fast. He felt himself getting dizzy and nearly buckled if not for Kraglin having a tight hold on him. His eyes stung and he couldn’t tell if his vision was blurry because of sweat, condensation, or tears, but he stared wide-eyed through the red lenses until he saw Kraglin’s face. The Xandarian looked calm as ever. He didn’t have words yet, just raspy gasps of air, but it was good to find Kraglin. It was good that he was holding his wrists. Peter told himself this over and over until his heart wasn’t beating at the back of his throat.

“There we go,” said Kraglin, taking big slow breaths as he encouraged Peter to do the same. “You go anywhere that don’t got any air or it ain’t got the _right_ air? You press that button, like I did. That’s gonna save yer life.” Peter sniffled inside the mask, his whole body trembling. “You good, Pete?”

Peter nodded.

“Ya want me to show you how you take it off?”

He nodded again.

There was another button that appeared on the outside of the helmet once it was activated. It was larger and harder to depress, making it easy to find but safe in a fight. Wasn’t gonna just disappear on accident if someone clubbed him. Kraglin took Peter’s hand and ran his finger over it, showing him where to press. The mask disintegrated much in the same fashion that it appeared. The air was much cooler in the Eclector and Peter took giant, grateful breaths before he collapsed against Kraglin, sobbing angrily into his chest.

“Okay,” said Kraglin, and patted his back. “None too pleasant.” When Peter started picking at the device to get it off his head, Kraglin held his hand again. “Keep it there, Pete. Like I said, it’ll save yer life.”

Instead of saying how much he didn’t want to go anywhere he would need it, or how he didn’t want to have to go through with the vault job and how he wasn’t sure he was ready for it, how he was scared, he cried until he felt wrung out. Kraglin, for what it was worth, let him.

After a while, Peter calmed down. He slipped out of Kraglin’s arms, standing awkwardly near the wall as he wiped his face with the back of his hands. Kraglin peaked down at his uniform, which weren’t worse for wear. If anything, Peter’s face was now streaked with dirt except for the lines down the sides of his cheeks. Kraglin dusted his hands and stood.

“Come on, then,” said Kraglin with an eye roll. “Let’s go get you cleaned up ‘fore anyone sees ya.”

He put his hands in his pockets and started off towards the washroom. Didn’t even mind that Peter had hooked his hand into the crease of his elbow and was holding on like he was being escorted.

“So,” said Peter, and sniffed again. “This thing.” He gestured vaguely at the device still there under his ear. “It’s special then, huh?”

“Yep,” Kraglin answered.

“You went and got me something special?”

“I just said, didn’t I?”

“You think _I’m_ special?” asked Peter and there was that old impish grin again.

“I think yer a special case of ‘pain in the ass,’ sure,” said Kraglin.

“Tsk.” Peter wrapped his arm around Kraglin’s skinny waist. “You think I’m special.”

“No I don’t,” Kraglin shot back, trying to wriggle out of Peter’s hug.

“You do.”

“I do _not_!”

“You do!”

“No!” He broke away from Peter with a shove, not unkindly of course, before he stomped ahead. Peter was right on his heels, taunting back up at him, “You do, you do, guys, Kraglin thinks I’m special!”

“I’ll toss you out the airlock, Pete,” said Kraglin with a scowl, but he let the kid stay close by and walked with him all the way to the washroom, even when he had plenty of other tasks to see to before they were set to head off on the job. Weren’t nothing but his own sort’ve pre-steal ritual, seeing after the man who would get them into the vault. Well, not man. Boy. Brat, actually. But the brat would be able to breathe, so that set up his chances for survival to a higher percentage, and Kraglin felt better about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen. I have lots of feelings about Kraglin and I hope to add to your feelings too. Feelings for all!


	3. You Don't Know Shit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We might actually get down to the Kree planet and start the mission, hot damn!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm of the Kragdu faith. Like. It's there. Brief mention of scars and self-harm. Look out for that.

“Gave him the helmet,” said Kraglin with a huff as he settled onto the edge of the bed. He made another noise as he reached for his boot, working his foot free.

“Good,” Yondu answered. He worked his fingers under the buckle clasps going up his torso. He was turned away towards the corner of the room, looking down but not paying much attention to anything around him.

“Sir, not to, y’know, question you or nothin’,” Kraglin started when he finally kicked the boot off. “But, uh, if he’s…well, you know. If he’s—”

“Yeah?” Yondu asked, his voice gruff enough it almost came out a growl. He hooked his chin down towards his chest, pulling the belt out of the clasp.

“Well, you know. And if he is, I don’t think we gotta worry so much about the air killing him. I mean, what you said about what Ego was, er, _is_ , then I don’t know.”

“No,” said Yondu at last. He turned, hands on his hips, glaring down at his first mate. “You don’t.”

Kraglin knew that look. Knew he should probably be reaching for his wayward boot, but they were set to sail tomorrow and he didn’t want to end the night like this.

“I’m just sayin’, you don’t gotta waste a breather on the kid if he ain’t gotta worry about it.”

“And _I’m_ sayin’ you drop it or get out.”

“Well, what, you got yerself one, sir? Cause I ain’t never seen you wear one and maybe you should think about yerself a little more. I know yer a selfish sonovabitch, so act like it.”

Kraglin stood, fists dropped down by his side, his jumpsuit halfway unzipped and draped lazily around his skinny hips. He wasn’t shaking as much as he thought he might, when most of his muscles were tense and his whole body thrummed with anger, but he scowled, waiting to see a fist fly straight for his mouth. Worse yet, he might hear a whistle and see red spear his eyes right before the arrow went through his skull.

But there weren’t no whistle, no fists, not even a snarl outta the captain. They just stood there, lookin’ at each other and waitin’ for whoever was gonna fuck up first.

“I can breathe Kree air fine,” said Yondu at last, his eyes narrowing slightly. “If’n yer so worried.”

“No,” said Kraglin even though he didn’t let his fists go slack. “I know.”

“Like I said, you don’t.”

They’d talked about it a few times, long after their shifts were over and they were three barrels deep in that shitty gold Sovereign wine they’d been paid off in for the Ybria heist. Each of them carried a bandy of scars and their origins had a few fun stories, but most weren’t something to laugh at. They laughed anyways when they explained them just because that was easier to do. This was from a couple of orphans back on Xandar who thought they could take the last of the food rations they’d set up in a nest during the winter. That was from a disagreement with a matron at the Steel Rider on Ipsis IV. These were a bad month after they lost those kids from the hull breach. They laughed and slapped each other’s backs and got stories from a few others on the ship. Tullk had that mess on his face. Vorker had that eye. Any of these were fair game. Anything ‘cept for the ring around Yondu’s neck what he hid by that scarf of his and the ones going up the back of his legs. Those they didn’t get to laugh at.

“Fine,” Kraglin said at last and tied the arms of his jumpsuit tighter round his waist. He set his jaw when he reached over for his boot. “Should be arrivin’ at Tullika in a few hours by nav’s estimates. I’ll, uh, see you at the ships then, sir.”

Yondu crossed his arms and watched as Kraglin straightened his back. He didn’t bother putting the boot back on. Would take too much time, too much effort, so he headed on over for the door. He waved his hand over the sensor to unlock it when there was a sharp twill and the nearly silent whisper through the air sailing his way. Kraglin shut his eyes, expecting that to be the end of it. When nothing touched him, he opened his eyes by increments and slowly turned back to face his captain.

“Sir?”

The arrow was hovering lazily over Kraglin’s chest, bobbing to the dull display of light through Yondu’s fin implant. Kraglin looked from his captain to the arrow and back again, his face tilting slightly in an unasked question.

“Ain’t I captain of this ship?” Yondu asked, his face still sour and his bloody red eyes glimmering in the low light. Kraglin was about to answer, but Yondu continued. “And ain’t I the one to worry about what happens to my men on this ship? Ain’t it _my_ order that we gave Quill the breather?”

When he was sure Yondu was finished, Kraglin finally croaked out, “Aye, captain.”

Yondu forked his tongue into his cheek and clicked to himself, something probably profane enough to make a Sister of Vixtira blush. Then, with a jerk of his chin, he whistled the arrow back to the holster still strapped to his side. The signal was more than just for the arrow. Kraglin waved the door to lock again and turned back towards the cabin as Yondu finished with the first set of straps.

“Help me with this already,” said Yondu, futzing with the pieces across his abdomen. “Fuckin’ zipper all caught and….”

“It’s better than that fur-lined thing ya used to sport when I first came on,” said Kraglin and stepped over to help. “Though I do kinda miss the gold necklace.”

“Yeah?” Yondu asked and twerked his hairless eyebrow upwards. “Sure I got that around here somewhere.”

“Makes the tattoos stand out more,” said Kraglin offhandedly. He saw some of them peeking out over his captain’s torso and skipped a finger across them. Scars were fun and all, but the tattoos were by choice. Kraglin knew that well enough. There was a mess of black markings on his neck, down across his collarbone, and snaking to his hipbone. Yondu would sometimes run his thumb across them absently, but he was busy getting out of his Ravager uniform then. They had a few hours still. Yondu had his own rituals too, ones that Kraglin was more than happy to oblige.

*

The usual blare of the alarm startled Peter out of his sleep. He blinked away the last images of the dream, something with fire and ugly faces splitting across the surface of a planet. Same old same old whatever. He smashed his hands into his eyes before he grabbed the red leather jacket he kept rolled up on the edge of his bed and hopped out, scuttling out of the tiny room. The Walkman was clipped to his belt and the orange headphones draped casually around his neck. Kraglin would probably say something about how he should leave it behind because this was an important mission and all, but he wasn’t gonna and Yondu wouldn’t even care. If he broke it—okay, _when_ he broke it…again—Peter would just have to figure out how to fix it. Same as always.

The crowds had gathered again, pockets of teams here and there with little room between them. They were all linking up communication devices and checking their weapons. A few lounged near the M-ships without anything but a short-range blaster on their hips. All of them had on red leather, dressed in what would be considered formal Ravager attire, not that it was pretty or nothing, just that it was their best. It was a real important occasion, it seemed. Peter threw his new leather coat on and skipped on through until he found Kraglin there at the front and took his place.

“Hey-a,” said Kraglin with a small smile. He put his hand on Peter’s shoulder and shook him left and right. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” said Peter, infected by Kraglin’s jovial mood. “Yeah! Are you?”

“Yup,” Kraglin answered before he turned and barked out at the crowd. “Alright! Got ourselves posted just outside surface radar. We got us some cover cause they got a storm ripping across the estate. Means whoever’s best flying through rain is your pilot. Watch out that none of yer cannons get fried before we cross the shields. Where’s our battering ram?”

Five ravagers put their fists up in the air.

“Right. Yer gonna send up a signal once you take out the turrets at the entrance. Got two teams taking up the back. Once we have it cleared, we’ll send down the vault crawling team.” At this, he tapped Peter again, who beamed out at the crew.

“Keep ‘em busy while we get that prize!” said Yondu across the hangar bay, clipping something into his belt. The men around him hollered, thumping their chests as they made way for their captain. “Let’s go, boys. Got us a rich bastard waitin’ fer us to steal from!”

Everyone dashed to their ships, loading up in groups of pilots and gunners. They were all bustling but, despite how everyone was laughing and hollering at each other, they were quite efficient at getting the fleet up and running. Kraglin went off for his M-ship and Peter trailed behind. They were met by Tullk there by the ship, who shouldered to big blasters as he boarded. They were all that made up the team that would get into the vault.

“What about Yondu?” Peter asked as he stepped into Kraglin’s M-ship. It looked a little starker compared to Yondu’s. No baubles or toys scattered around. “Is he not coming with us?”

“Nah,” said Kraglin. He hoped into his pilot chair, flipping up a row of toggles. “He’s got somethin’ else.”

“Anybody going with him?” Peter asked.

“Well, yeah,” said Kraglin over his shoulder. “Got all of us, don’t he?”

“We’ll be righ’ there behind ‘im,” said Tullk from the other side of the ship. He’d put down his blasters and was busy lining up the sights on the ship’s cannon. He tweaked his head and with a laugh added, “Lit’rally.”

“Alright, now buckle up,” said Kraglin. The engine started. The whole hangar bay roared to life with each M-ship powering on around them. “Captain’d kill me if somethin’ happened cause ya didn’t have a seat belt on.”

Peter only grumbled a little as he pulled the strap across his waist, straining in his seat to watch everything Kraglin did. Which buttons he pressed to get the engine started, how he moved the joy stick to maneuver them out of the hangar bay. He’d watched every single time and was sure, if it came to it, he’d probably be able to fly them around some.

His stomach fluttered uncomfortably as they slipped out into the void and hovered with the fleet over a pristine blue planet. The clouds were swirling and flashing big purple pulses here and there. Peter stared at it, open mouthed before he watched Yondu’s ship take up the lead and nose-dive for a particularly dark cluster on the surface.

“So that’s Tullika,” said Peter softly.

“Aye, that’s Tullika,” said Tullk. “Me Ma always said it were the prettiest place in the whole galaxy.”

“That why she named you after it?” Peter asked only to have Tullk burst out laughing, a huge guffaw like it was the funniest thing in the world. “What?”

“Named…after a planet!” Tullk wheezed and slapped his knee.

“ _What_? Tullk. Tullika. It’s, like, the same name, isn’t it?”

But Tullk just kept laughing and Kraglin told them both to shut it.

There wasn’t much time to gaze from afar before Kraglin took them down after the rest of the fleet. Tullk let out a yelp of glee, hanging back and holding onto the ceiling for any kind of support. _Where’s_ his _belt?_ Peter thought absently, but was quickly distracted as they burst through the clouds, the ship rocking against the violent gusts of wind. He gripped onto the arm rests, digging his fingernails in deep.

“ _This_ is a paradise planet?” Peter yelled.

“Off season! Hold on!”

They were orchestrated by the lightening that ripped overhead and the thunderclaps that shook through their bones and Tullk’s insane pleasure in the moment. Peter didn’t dare take his hands off the armrests, even to put his headphones over his ears. Instead, he shrieked notes to himself, high pitchy sounds, facsimiles of their original songs. It helped relieve some of the pressure in his chest.

“What’s _that_?”

There was a big dome looming up through the clouds and fog. It shimmered a soft purple color, pulsing brighter wherever raindrops hit it so the whole thing looked to be alive. Kraglin was aiming the ship straight for it. Despite the weather doing its best to knock them outta the sky, he had a pretty even sight on it. Peter pushed further into the seat, screwing his eyes shut as he expected the ship to hit the wall and crumple like a piece of aluminum foil. The ship rocked around them and there was a crackle as lightning struck the wingtip before they ghosted through the shield.

It was like someone had flipped a switch. Peter opened his eyes as the silence crept in and he looked out on what could truly be described as paradise. The inside of the giant dome was clear blue skies and a calm, gentle breeze. There was soft-looking hills of blueish grass loping around them, leading to a cliff that slid down to a sea. The hills were littered with several buildings. They looked small from their height but as Kraglin dipped them down closer, Peter watched them grow until they rivaled the size of the Eclector. Which meant the giant mansion sitting up on the highest ridge had to be enormous. Yondu and the others were somewhere in the huge dome as well, but they either couldn’t be seen or hadn’t been spotted yet. The battering team was the only one running up towards the building, laying down long tracks of red light as they blasted apart any of the turrets.

Kraglin parked the M-ship next to one of the buildings. It was made out of a white stone that was marbled with purple veins, pulsing that same holographic-like light of the dome overhead, the one that protected them from the elements.

“We wait here ‘till we get the signal to go,” said Kraglin, tilting screens his way and opening all channels for chatter. “Then we get you to the access point there near Gor’Tun’s library.”

“Where?” Peter asked over Kraglin’s shoulder, trying to see any maps.

“You’ll know when you know,” said Kraglin. He pushed Peter away, unbuckled himself and went down the ladder to the cabin below. “Holler if they say anything!”

“”Wait, what’re you doing?” Peter asked. Tullk took Kraglin’s seat without word.

“I’m hungry,” Kraglin answered from below. “Didn’t get to eat nothin’ before we took off. You want anything?”

Peter was about to shout, “No!” because his stomach was in knots from the flight down, but there was a little grumble at the mention of food. Peter hadn’t had time to stop by the mess hall either. He touched his tummy and said, “Yeah, alright. What’ve you got?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All my babies just having fun flying off and making war :_) Plus I put in some fluff, look at that! With a little mention of Yondu's 616 look because Space Pimp is just...too good to not talk about. Anyways, next we get to actually start stealing things, what WHAT? Thanks for reading!


	4. Out of the Chop Shop, Into the Frying Pan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of the Ravagers bungled their entrance into the vault, so now they have to find another way. Peter's gonna have to learn to fly at some point, even if it isn't with an M-ship.

The hallway echoed with the timpani of boots on a pristine floor mapped out ahead of them. A portrait of Noras the Divider flickered across the wall, larger than life, staring down with those dark menacing eyes. They were painted in the finest Kree colors, ceremonial lines on their face, the headdress tilted just so. The Sakaaran marched in line beside him, unaware of the beauty of the predecessor watching them. Gor’Tun tilted his head in reverence as they passed until they were well on their way to the laboratory. He entered without a word.

The unmarked Kree worked over their tables, each of them pale replicas of the true Kree race. Gor’Tun brought them on as soon as he had access to the Iv’ro Lan. They paid for their place with sweat and blood, as should anyone in the empire, and gave him their latest experiments that would be sent on to the authorities at the front. Gor’Tun dreamed that it would be his scientists that unlocked the key to the Kree’s evolutionary stagnation. This would bring him the eternal honor his father Noras the Divider had known. That, and it would pay handsomely. This, perhaps, was his true goal, one he did not voice aloud. Best to say this is all for his father and leave it at that.

There was a commotion going on over by one of the tanks, and three pale Kree scientists scurried over to recapture their experiment. Gor’Tun and his entourage watched from the far side of the room, steely eyed to the shrieks of whatever beast they had trapped over there. A few short words and the crackle of an electrified shot nullified the creature. It was dragged back over to the table where they were busy reassembling parts. Gor’Tun could see a small ringed tail and disturbing claws twitch. There were cages behind them with other vermin who would soon benefit from the Kree’s advancements.

Gor’Tun continued his survey as he stalked down the center aisle. A few nodded in his direction, but most were keen to finish their projects before the end of the day and were smart to keep their heads down. There was one, a young woman with a steady posture and impressive figure despite her defective pale pigment who came to the center aisle and took step beside Gor’Tun.

“We’ve seen moderate progress on the 89P series, and I believe revisiting talks to sell prototypes to Halfworld in the Keystone Quadrant would help—”

“Have we finished unlocking the rest of the data loaded in Iv’ro Lan?” Gor’Tun asked, cutting the woman off.

“We….” The woman paused briefly, and a Sakaaran nudged her back up towards Gor’Tun, who had not slowed down. “The security details that connect Nova Corps’ colonies have already been decoded from the last piece. I believe the inventory of confiscated items has been logged, but I’m not sure…if….”

Gor’Tun liked this woman, there was no doubt. She was selfishly invested in the experiments and therefore schemed any way to put them at the front of their research. She cowed to Gor’Tun’s wallet and picked up just enough information about the Xandarians in order to keep her useful. But he liked her. And it was failing him then.

“It is in our greatest interest to find the data collected by the Xandarians. They have stolen millions of archives related to the Iv’ro Lan. Somewhere, based on our histories, is the key to the continuation of our way,” said Gor’Tun as he slowed and stood in front of a table littered with bloody medical instruments. “That is our only endeavor here. That is our,” and Gor’Tun pursed his lips as he spit out the word, “purpose.” In the same breathe he grabbed an instrument off the table and held it up to the woman’s eye, clamping his arm around the back of her head to hold her in place. “You’d do best to remember this. Abandon the pet project. Find me the final piece to Nova Prime’s encryption and unlock the Iv’ro Lan.”

The woman whimpered, clawing at Gor’Tun’s forearm as she stared down the length of the instrument hovering above the meniscus of her eye. She fell back into the table when he let her go. And he did just let her go, which was a kindness. He really did like her.

A Sakaaran came up to flank Gor’Tun after he set the instrument down. Something flashed on a data pad, flickering red smoke across a familiar building. Gor’Tun reluctantly switched over to their language and asked what he was being shown.

“ _There’s been a breech, sir,_ ” the Sakaaran answered in its garbled way.

“Yes, I see!” Gor’Tun’s voice rose and everyone turned. He towered over the soldier, muscles flexing along his jaw as he asked in a clean, clear note, “Why?”

He reached for the data pad and flicked a holoprojection up onto the table so he could watch a 3D recording of the attack. It looked to only be two or three of those bird-like M-ships favored by one of the Ravager factions in the area. Gor’Tun couldn’t remember a name, but he had heard of petty thefts and skirmishes. There had been perhaps one or two disturbances with supply runs and Gor’Tun had hired extra security when he needed it. Now the morons thought they might try a bigger haul, it seemed.

“Shoot them out of the sky,” Gor’Tun said insistent on keeping an even, if obviously threatening tone. The Sakaaran swiped through his data pad again. “What? What is it?”

The soldier was hesitant to show what he knew, so Gor’Tun grabbed the pad again and looked at the smoking craters where his turrets had been. Gor’Tun set his jaw, counting the ships, the seconds they were still airborne, and the number of useless soldiers that were around him. He’d have them gutted when this was over.

“Must I do everything,” Gor’Tun said and slapped the data pad back into the Sakaaran’s chest. He pivoted, stalking back down the lab’s main aisle. There was a secure tunnel that would take him back up to the estate where he could finish off the filthy pirates who were temporarily stalling his work. He had a collection of tools he liked in one of his antechambers, and he was headed towards it when the ground lurched. Several Sakaarans leapt in front of him as a blast of fire rocketed down towards the lab. They were flat on their back when the flames shot overhead. Several Kree scientists screamed. Apparently they were too slow to dodge the blast.

 _Good riddance_ , Gor’Tun thought as he crawled to his knees.

There was no patience left in him. He took off down the hall, letting the scientists recover whatever they were working on. And there, guiding him back to his estate through the black smoke, were the eyes of his father flickering in the hologram painting, Noras the Divider. Would he be proud? Maybe if there were Ravager skulls set on the highest point as a flag to anyone else who decided that their Tullika base was an easy target.

*

“Okay, now they’re just bein’ reckless,” said Kraglin over his plate. “Ain’t no reason to hit any of them other buildings there. They took out the guns.”

“Well now, what about any o’ them soldiers supposed to be hangin’ about then, eh?” Tullk asked. He fingered a small cube of meat off the plate and fished it up to his mouth without asking. “Best to smoke ‘em out then or else it’s us what’s gonna be havin’ to fight ‘em once we go fer the library.”

“They got the heat signatures there already,” said Kraglin and pointed to another screen, like they had clicked over to watch the Grandmaster’s tournaments. “So, not like nobody’s gonna sneak up.”

“That’s just surface stuff,” said Tullk. He was about to grab another piece off Kraglin’s plate, but was slapped away before Kraglin started shoveling his food into his mouth.

“So then, when do we go?” Peter asked.

The two Ravagers stopped fighting over scraps and turned over towards Quill, who was resting in a co-pilot seat with his feat knocked up on the controls. He had intently picked every spec of dirt out from under his nails and had switched on over to cleaning the crevices on his Walkman. It felt like _hours_ had passed, and Peter was on the verge of nodding off right before the second wave picked up and started bombing the place.

“Itchin’ to get in there?” asked Kraglin. “Cause I reckon we still got some time.”

Peter sighed dramatically, flopping his hands down against his chest.

“Yeah, but how _long_?” he asked with a whine.

“When they give the signal, that’s when we go, alright?”

“That’s gonna be forever.”

“You don’t even know how long forever is,” said Kraglin and waved away the kid’s petulance as he went back to the screens. One of the M-ships clipped over the top of the building, ripping a hole. “Oh! They got Rube’s at the helm, ‘cause that was the dumbest thing I ever saw.”

“Rubero’s a damn fool,” Tullk said with a nod.

“Ain’t that…well….” Kraglin twisted his head and looked over the map again. “Shit. Took our opening over the library right there.”

Peter tossed his feet back to the floor as Tullk and Kraglin crowded around the displays. They yanked it back and forth, pointing at spots and arguing about what they were going to do now that Rubero had fucking ruined their entrance.

“I _told_ ya he was as useful as a sack o’ Orloni shit.”

“I ain’t arguin’ against it!” Kraglin wheeled through his contacts until he had Yondu and pressed into the com link. “Captain. We lost the library route.”

“I saw!” Yondu roared back. There was the sound of gunfire and explosions. He grunted something and then the com link lit up with static before he cursed. “Comin’ outta the fuckin’ ground here. Listen! They got another entrance. It’s smaller, but that’s why we got the boy, don’t we? Cause he’s…shit…them fuckin’….”

“Captain?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Yondu said back. “Listen. Go over to the atrium you see there close to the cliff. Yer gonna have to be airborne when you transfer, but there’s a hatch there that’ll take him up. Got any rocket boots with ya?”

“They’re gonna be huge on him, sir.”

“Stuff em or somethin’, I gotta think of everything?”

Yondu cursed again and howled out a whoop of delight when he cut through the defensive ship that had took off in front of him.

“Get this over with Kraglin, we gotta make this work.”

“Aye, Captain.” Kraglin pressed the com link and was out of his chair before Peter could say a word. Tullk seemed to understand plenty. He was after Kraglin as they both dipped down to the cabin of the ship. They were rummaging through Kraglin’s things and once Peter finally scurried down the ladder, he had an old sweaty shirt tossed in his face. “Pete, yer gettin’ a quick lesson on flyin’.”

“Flying!” Peter then looked down at the soiled shirt and watched Tullk toss a boot over towards Kraglin, who caught it deftly and started shoving what could’ve been socks into the toes. “With….what? Those?”

Kraglin didn’t answer. He just walked over and had Peter sit on the ladder as he started putting the boots on, cutting up the discarded shirt so he could tie them tighter around Peter’s skinny ankles. The Ravagers worked quickly and quietly and once they were sure he was as strapped in as he could possibly be, Kraglin checked that the helmet implant was still in place and then climbed back up to the cockpit.

“Wait, what about that lesson?” Peter asked.

“Right,” said Tullk and knelt down in front of Peter. They could feel the ship lift off the ground. Peter instinctively grabbed the wrung of the ladder and held on, his stomach lifting again. “Yondu says yer a quick learner, so, pay attention. We’re doin’ the shortest lesson I know. Now here we have yer boosters. Yer gonna click ‘em on like so. Dependin’ on how you point ‘em, they’ll carry ya forward and back. It’s like…dancin’.”

“Dancing?” Peter asked, twisting his eyebrows together.

“Aye. So.”

Tullk rattled off how to start the boots and how to stop them, what best way to hold your heels to make sure you point the right direction, and how best to hover if needed. Peter wiggled his toes in the gap left over from Kraglin’s hasty sock stuffing. They felt too loose and he was worried they’d shoot off his feet the second he was up.

“Not if ye pay attention,” said Tullk and laughed, patting Peter’s elbow. “So pay attention.”

“Right.” Peter gulped and looked down at the boots. “Sure. Easy.”

“Not so much,” said Tullk and climbed up to the cockpit.

“Jeeze, Tullk, lie to me a _little_ ,” said Peter, who went up join them.

“Next time!” Tullk answered and barked out another one of his long, maniacal laughs.

The view in front of them switched dramatically from ground to sky to sea, and Peter fell into the chair as he grappled for his seat belt before he fell into the windshield. Kraglin said absently over his shoulder, “Thought you was buckled in already.”

“Yeah, uh, I _wasn’t_ ,” Peter answered, feeling another dip as Kraglin piloted them dramatically down towards the sea.

“Well, hold on, cause we’re takin’ ya up to the spot now.”

“Where?”

“There,” said Tullk and pointed above them.

The M-ship hovered with the nose pointed towards the Cliffside, looking up at a small black tunnel leading into the rock. It had a rusted grate hanging loosely from it, waving at them in the kickback breeze from the M-ship’s engines. Kraglin had a steady lock on it, and the ship didn’t sway. But the tunnel looked tiny, an opening that would even make Peter feel cramped. He shook his head at it, but Tullk was already prepping, opening a hatch that lead to the top of the M-ship. A gust of acidic air shot inside and Kraglin leaned over, flicking the button that activated the helmet. Peter stepped back as it enclosed his face, but he was better prepared for it. Tullk covered his mouth and coughed, but he seemed to be doing fine. He grabbed Peter by the shoulder.

“Whoa, wait a minute,” said Peter, his voice only a little muffled by the mask. “You guys don’t think I can just climb _that_ , do you?”

“Sure we do,” said Tullk. “Come on. We don’t gotta lot o’ time here.”

“Yeah, but it’s _tiny_!”

“So’re you!” Tullk answered.

“Hey!” Peter wheeled around to look up Kraglin, who had two hands back on the joystick of the M-ship, keeping it steady as a rock. “I got you linked up here on my display. We can see and hear everything’ you do. So don’t worry.”

“Okay,” Peter answered slowly, his voice a little higher pitched than he’d like. He cleared his throat and steadied himself as he climbed up after Tullk, who was already perched on the M-ship roof. He took Peter’s hand and steadied him. Just as they started walking over towards the entrance, a trickle of rocks started falling. Peter and Tullk craned their necks up towards the atrium. They couldn’t see anything, but the dust as coming down harder, almost in sheets. Tullk took a step back to see. He covered his eyes, straining his back, when he cursed. A boulder the size of the ship came barreling down. He slapped Peter’s rocket boots and shoved him towards the tunnel just before the boulder clipped the left wing of Kraglin’s M-ship and ripped them down towards the sea.

“Wait!” Peter screamed, watching Tullk and Kraglin and the M-ship become smaller and smaller until it looked like it was going to hit the water. Peter flexed his feet like Tullk had showed him to keep steady but he wavered, his stomach muscles clenching as he tried to hover in the air. He slammed his back against the cliff, the wind whipping at the helmet and making it roar in his ears so loud, he almost didn’t hear himself. But the M-ship tilted at the last second, slicing her broken wing against the water before it glided off, twirling back around in a shaky circle and then landing on the water. “Kraglin? Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” Kraglin’s voice sounded a little broken through the helmet. “Get up in the tunnel, Pete. Like the Captain said.”

“But what about you? And Tullk?”

“I got ‘im. Just get up there like we showed ya.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Pete! Go!”

He didn’t say another word. Peter put one hand over the top of his Walkman, running his fingers up the wire to the headphones still snug around his neck, nestled in the collar of the Ravager coat, and he started to climb up the black tunnel with the help of Kraglin’s rocket boots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this again. I couldn't figure out how to start this chapter. But, we made it! Also, at first I thought the Ravagers would eat things like jerky and...whatever, tough food or something, but they all have TERRIBLE teeth, so I figure it's a bunch of soft grubs and meat and jelly things. Anyways, thanks for reading!


	5. This is Fine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's a couple of Sakaarans to a sneaky Pete? Looks like Peter's gonna take care of himself, but, I have to ask, who is gonna take care of Kraglin?
> 
> The song playing is, you probably know, O-o-h Child.

The soft sound of The Five Stairsteps bounced around the tunnel like the ghostly echo of a faraway choir. So far it was a straight shoot upwards. The walls were damp with bits of mossy-looking patches here and there. Peter didn’t feel anything wet fall on his head, but decided he didn’t want to be in the tunnel in case something got flushed. The 70s song came out clearly through his headphones, cradling him in sound like a pair of familiar arms. He followed it all the way up until the tunnel took a sudden hook to the right. The view through the helmet helped him see a little. Peter stared down the slightly sloped tunnel only to see black there at the very end.

“Oh man,” Peter said with a groan, bobbing slightly with the propulsion of the rocket boots. “Kraglin?” He waited, and then touched the side of his head, not to undo the helmet but to press it closer into his ear, in case he wasn’t able to hear clearly. “Kraglin? You still there?”

“Hey,” said Kraglin at last. He sounded so far away and there were little bits of static sprinkled throughout. “Yeah. S-ill h—.”

“Kraglin? I can’t hear you!”

“It’s a—ssk—gonna b—ssk—top.”

“ _What_?”

“Ya hafta g—ssk—top.”

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” Peter yelled, fogging up the lenses a little on the inside of his helmet, “but I’m at this, like, fork or something. So I’m gonna keep going. Okay?”

“Sssk—ou g—ssk—higher, I can li—ssk.”

“Okay!” Peter yelled and bit his lip. “I’m gonna go!”

“Just b—“ but the rest of his words were lost in the garble.

“I will,” Peter muttered and crawled up into the tunnel shaft.

He clicked the boots off like Tullk had showed him and started forward on hands and knees. The ceiling occasionally bumped his back and he had to crane his neck down slightly until it started to cramp. All he had to do was lean a little to the left or right to nudge the tunnel wall. It really was a tight fit. Not _too_ tight, of course. He decided it was just fine, just _fine_. He decided it loudly and laughed and then regretted it as the sound echoed down the tunnel, reverberating from the speaker in his helmet. But it was fine. He felt a wad of moss envelope his hand like putty. But it was _fine_.

“Someday we’ll get it together and we’ll get it all done,” Peter sang and laughed as the chorus to his music took off. He struggled to reach down to his hip, but he managed to find the volume and scooted the dial until it was all he heard.

*

“That don’t look right,” said Tullk, flopping into the seat with his left arm pinned close to his chest. He was dripping wet from when he’d been flung off the wing and into the water, but he’d had a good grip while the ship was dropping from the sky. The metal bracers on his arm helped. He settled in with a squelching sound and wiped some of the stringy braids off his forehead. “Gonna need Doc to get it outta there then?”

“Yep,” said Kraglin.

He shifted slightly in the seat despite the jagged hunk of metal that was going clean through, just above his hip bone. Okay. It didn’t touch his back, not quite, but it was _in_ there. Kraglin huffed, wondering exactly when the ship breaking around him and Tullk getting flown off that he managed to catch a bit of debris with his body. Felt like a bug pinned to a board more than anything. He gave out a low groan before he collected himself. He forked a thumb over towards Tullk’s arm and said, “Neither does that.”

“But it just be the one broken bone,” said Tullk with a shrug. “Coulda been worse.”

“Please don’t say that,” said Kraglin. He coughed, wiping a slimy streak of blue off his chin. “Just. Can ya see him or not?”

“He’s there.” Tullk twisted the display and smiled at the ghostly red lines of Quill’s biometrics before he gave Kraglin a quick once over. Weren’t good. Weren’t much he could do, Tullk was shit at flying and he was shit at patching up. Man was a fighter, a gun for hire before he joined up with the Ravagers. He knew what he was good at. But they were gonna have to get back to the Eclector soon. “Doin’ exactly as we’ve asked.”

“Then, uh, if’n ya don’t mind. I think I might…get some rest.”

“Hey, we give him a blaster before we sent him up?”

Kraglin let his head drop onto the headrest behind him, his eyes closed, but he managed a weak, “What?”

Tullk leaned forward and swiped at the displays, punching up a new readout of the estate. Four or five new dots took up post close to where Peter was headed. They crowded around the floor above him but apparently the boy was making a ruckus, cause they trailed after him tighter than a group of grouslins.

“We did, didn’t we?”

“I didn’t,” said Kraglin. He peeked beneath his knitted brow before he curled his lip up. Even as shiny and pale as he was, he set himself with a mean, determined look. Took a moment, but he had Yondu’s com-link back up. “Captain?”

“Not _now_!” Yondu shot back.

“Pete’s in trouble,” he said.

“Seven _hells_ , Kraggles!” Yondu was muffled a bit before there was another blast. “Where is he?”

“In that tunnel goin’ under the atrium, like ye showed us,” Tullk said from his chair. He swiveled it around and leaned closer to the mic. “There’s what appears t’be a group o’ five soldiers waitin’ for him to come through the other end.”

“Why ain’t you there with him?” Yondu growled.

“Rock face took out one o’ the wings, Capt’n.”

“Shit.” A beat filled with violent noises and then Yondu said, “I’m outta the ship. Got a ways before I can get over to that atrium. Ya done given him a blaster before ya sent him off?”

“Uh,” was Tullk’s answer before Kraglin struggled to sit up, gritting his teeth as he grabbed the controls to the M-ship.

“Don’t worry, sir.” Kraglin gingerly touched his side before he nodded once. He grunted a short rebellious string of words, cursing himself blue as he started the engines. “We’ll get him.”

“We gotta get in that vault.”

“Aye, Capt’n,” Tullk answered and shut off the com. “Are ye daft? How’re ye gonna fly this in yer condition?”

“Pretty easily,” Kraglin answered, beads of sweat standing out on his forehead.

“Don’a go lyin’ to _me_.”

“Okay,” Kraglin said as the M-ship swiveled on the warped pivot of her broken wing. Took three turns in the water before they were able to shoot upwards, rocking dangerously. But Kraglin had a firm grip on the controls, despite his slick hands. He got them headed straight for the estate.

*

It didn’t take _days_ , but there was finally light at the end of the tunnel. Peter saw it coming down in a strained gray light. The tunnel had tilted up again, not enough that he needed the rocket boots, but his arms and legs were starting to hurt from the strain. He almost spider crawled his way towards it, grateful for the spongey moss that stopped him from turning his palms and knees into ground beef.

Peter turned down the volume to his Walkman with Moondage Daydream dying off just as David Bowie demanded to put a ray gun to his head. He tucked the headphones carefully into the lapel of his Ravager jacket, situating it tight against his skin before he crawled up the last bit of the tunnel. There was a grate again tiling across it and what appeared to be a slick white tiled room on the other side. Peter pressed his hand to the grate only to see a black eye slice across his vision, the business end of a blaster coming up a second after. Peter jerked back into the darkness, a piece of the tunnel smoking where he had just been. The Sakaaran soldiers heaved at the grate, two of them ripping it out and tossing it aside. Another crouched down and tilted his blaster into the tunnel. There was nowhere to run, but Peter pressed himself as flat as possible to the side, watching a ray of light scream down the tunnel, barely missing him. He wouldn’t be able to dodge a second attempt and, of course, Kraglin and Tullk had _completely_ neglected to give him _anything_ to defend himself.

Well.

Not _exactly_.

One of the soldiers shoved the others back so he could put his head into the tunnel to make sure their target was destroyed. Peter wiggled around in the tight quarters, pointing his feet towards the opening as he dug his fingers into the moss. He clacked his heel and the rocket boot fired into the face of the Sakaaran, engulfing his head in flames. The soldier screamed, the thick exoskeleton of his face cooked in a flash. Peter had a decent hold on the moss, but the blast was powerful and he started to skid backwards, ripping up clumps from the tunnel walls.

The face disappeared, replaced by a blaster again. Peter aimed his boot towards it but he was a little further back and didn’t get a direct hit. The heat scared the Sakaaran more than anything and he dropped his blaster, leaving it out in the ring of light coming down from the tunnel opening. Peter clicked off the boots again and saw the blaster, saw the hand grappling for it desperately. He twisted as fast as he could and lunged in the dark, his skinny arm exposed in the light. Someone grabbed for him, fingers grazing his coat as another blast rang off the tunnel wall next to him. But his fingers wrapped around the hilt of the blaster, just enough that he could yank it towards him and slid it easily into his right hand. He flipped on his back, firing at the soldiers that haloed the tunnel entrance. The blaster was heavy. It kicked violently into his chest, but he had a good grip and the support of the tunnel floor beneath him. It only punched the air from his chest as he fired through the ring of them, clipping shoulders, throats, faces, chests, that one guy’s arm. The Sakaaran’s fell one by one, getting an errant shot off overhead as they slipped back dramatically from the blast.

Peter fired until he didn’t hear anything. The last soldier collapsed on the man next to him in a gurgled death rattle. Peter breathed deeply, on the verge of hyperventilating, and the goggles to his mask were fogging up again. His chest hurt. That blaster really had a _kick_. But as he assessed his limbs, his torso, patting himself up and down in quick succession, and found he was pretty much unharmed. He was fine. This was _fine_.

“Oh god,” Peter said with a long, breathy sigh, almost letting himself slide back into the tunnel. He kicked his foot into the moss and caught his breath. Then, finally, he touched his helmet again. “Kraglin? Can you hear me?”

He waited, praying even for that annoying crackle noise. His breathing was back to a steady, normal rate and he even sat up, crouching on his knees in the center of the circle of light.  He called out to Kraglin again, just in case the Xandarian was busy and didn’t hear the first call. When it was clear there wasn’t going to be an answer, Peter peeked out of the tunnel with his fingers wrapped around the entrance.

It looked like some spa room or maybe like the mud room they had back home in Missouri. The walls were tall and every surface was covered in white tiles, including a rectangle bench sculpted into the far wall. There were banks of lights overhead and what looked like a faucet head for a shower or something. It was too big to be an actual shower; the wall stretched far enough away that Peter would have to get out of the tunnel to see it. But as he turned in a circle and looked over the literally smoking remains of the Sakaarans, he noticed that the room was empty.

“Okay, but not, like, forever,” Peter said. “Right?”

He decided it was dumb to stay there like a sitting duck and if Kraglin still couldn’t reach him, he’d have to head to those vents. If he got to the vault, he might be able to reach Kraglin. Maybe Yondu. Whoever. But anything was safer than sitting in the tunnel surrounded by dead dudes. Peter tried to pull himself up, but the weight of the blaster was too much, so he dropped it into the tunnel behind him before he quickly hoisted himself the rest of the way. He had to hold onto a Sakaaran’s arm while he did it, but the soldier didn’t move. None of them did.

Once Peter was on his feet, he checked the room again. Still empty, but now he could see the door where they’d come through. The other side was a glass view that looked out onto what had to be the atrium. Peter stared at it for a second, enjoying the soft view of clouds, sea, and exotic plant life, but he didn’t have time to get lost in it. He checked the soldiers and took another blaster, this one smaller, sleeker, but with fewer options for rounds. Maybe he wanted more firepower. Maybe—

Something exploded nearby. It was muffled by the walls of the room, but Peter knew it was only a room or two away. Too close. He recalled the map of the vents. They were supposed to go through the library, but there were other ways to get into it. He figured he’d know what it looked like when he saw it. So Peter ran over to the door, propping it open with a foot, and looked down a long lonely hallway. With the stolen blaster and his helmet secured in place, Peter scurried down it.

“I’m so good at scurrying,” Peter said, his voice a little rattled from the weight of carrying the blaster. “I’m, like, I’m the best. They don’t even know.”

“Hey!” someone shouted behind him, but he wasn’t gonna turn and face another onslaught of soldiers. So Peter sprinted down the hall, firing off a round blindly behind him. No answer after that. He took a corner and saw exactly what he was looking for, the grate cut neatly into the wall close to the ceiling. For a moment he wondered how he was going to get into it, but then he laughed, stomped on the rocket boots, and soared up to meet it, giggling to himself as he forced the grate open and climbed in before anyone saw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who was that in the hallway? You'll just have to find out, I GUESS. 
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing this one. Thanks for reading!


	6. Can I Be Frank

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yondu is having a day, let me tell you. Enemy territory? Check. Scattered crew? Check. Quill and Kraglin on radio silence? Double check. And now here's Gor'Tun the Kree just really screwing things up.

Problem weren’t the Sakaaran soldiers pouring outta every which way. Problem weren’t even that all the rooms seemed to pile atop each other and half the men were scattered without knowing which way was up. A panel could slide on outta the way and lead down to one o’ them creepy dungeon places where they was keeping some of the Kree slaves that likely kept the estate up and running—three of the rooms had been gassed when their doors were triggered and the kids inside were dead as dust. Yondu knew that acrid smell better than anybody. Made his teeth ache, made his eyes water, made his hands tremble. But his heart? His heart was steady and his arrow flew true. He even put his fist through a soldier and ripped out their tongue, stomping their chest down until it were nothing but goo.

No, problem was he couldn’t get a hold of the two he was certain he should. Kraglin wasn’t answering any of his calls and who in the seven hells knew if Quill was okay? Made him feel all knotted up just wondering. Best thing he could do was kill every sonovabitch what crossed his path.

And he did.

Quite efficiently.

The battering ram team had done a slick job getting the estate ripped open. They’d carved away the turrets there at the front and rear entrances, but when they peeled open the roof like a tin can, it all sorta went to shit. These things happened. They always did. It was why they went in guns blazing with overwhelming numbers. It’s what Stakar woulda done with his armada and Yondu liked the louder—if much messier—options of his thieving. He wanted that yard littered with Kree corpses, if he was honest. But, so far, it were nothing but Sakaaran black shells and armed drones that had swarmed outta the place.

After his own M-ship was overwhelmed with shrapnel and gunfire, Yondu took it in for a hard landing into one of the smaller buildings. He blasted a hole in the wall and sliced her through like a knife, leaving a trail of sparks and shattered glass from whatever cages had been housed there. Most of them were empty. Had fur lined up on the bottom. Claw marks. Some teeth or bones. It didn’t matter. If they had been something before, anything really, they were dead now and useless to getting the crew back up to the Eclector with their spoils. Yondu coughed against the smoke as he came outta his ship, waving at the destruction, eyeing for any movement before he took off for the estate.

There were only two times he was able to get a hold of Kraglin before they decided to go on to radio silence, and the last conversation didn’t put him at ease.

“Pete’s in trouble,” said Kraglin, right when he was whistling his way through a small troop of five.

It was tight quarters and he needed his fuckin’ mouth now to talk, since they’d got Quill in _trouble_ and all, so he took out his blaster and finished them off.

“Seven _hells_ , Kraggles!” Yondu yelled as he fired into the soldiers, watching them come apart like taking wings off an insect. “Where is he?”

But it was Tullk who answered. Didn’t know if that meant something. It pinged with Yondu straight away but he decided to ask after they were all back home where they belonged. Weren’t exactly safe. He was reminded of this then as four critters on too many legs rounded the corner, snapping their oversized jaws. Yondu rolled out of their path and fired, taking out one of the legs and catching a claw to his chest in the same breath. He grappled with it mid conversation and got the coordinates to the kid, guessing his own location as he wrestled the damn creature off his body. Atrium was on the other side of the estate. He was too far away if the kid was coming up on a nest of soldiers waiting to pick him off. As Tullk mulled over what they were doing, he said “We gotta get in that vault!”

“Aye, Capt’n,” Tullk responded before he shut off the com link.

“Ya ugly…sonova…bitch!”

Yondu rammed his blaster into the creature’s chest, firing rapidly until viscera shot out between its shoulder blades and rained down on its comrades. They snapped their giant maws. Yondu could only imagine an arm between them and how easy it would break. He raised his blaster on the closest one, sights set on its curled red snout, and shot off a round. The creature only whimpered, shook its head and, with the other two flanking it, charged. The blast had barely scorched it. Yondu’s whistle split the air and the red streak of his Yaka arrow flew out as a beam of clean white light sliced down the hallway like a guillotine, cleaving the creatures in two.

Yondu spun around, arm still raised, to see who or what had been his saving grace. Any joy at seeing someone from his crew was cut short as the tall Kree bastard there at the end of the hall glanced up at the ceiling in mild annoyance.

“I don’t enjoy having to put an animal down,” said the Kree in a well-trained voice. “Not when it is serving a purpose. Tell me, why are you here? Perhaps _you_ can serve a purpose.”

Yondu didn’t wait to respond. He trilled a note and the Yaka arrow twisted in the air, racing fast for the Kree’s head. It had the frantic, desperate energy of a young heart, and though its path was absolutely straight on, there was a bit of fear laced to it. Gor’Tun saw the arrow and side-stepped it, opening fire on Yondu before he had a chance to correct the arrow’s course. Another beam of light cleaved down from the ceiling, cutting the creatures clean through and barely grazing Yondu’s backside, a bit of his coat shredded there at the end. The light disappeared just as quickly.

“Fuckin’ Kree,” Yondu growled and whistled again. The arrow twisted in the air, but the Kree had activated the light wall again and the arrow sizzled through it a few times, catching nothing. He called it back just as the wall disappeared.

“Now where did you get that, I wonder?” Gor’Tun asked, appearing on the other side. He had his arm raised, opening fire. Blaster shots rained down on Yondu, who was forced back. He slipped on the streak of blood from the halved creature, wrenching himself towards the wall to steady himself before he caught a blast to the head or some other crazy shit. The Kree kept firing, but Yondu skittered out of the range of the blast, booking it down the hallway fast as he could.

Another hole appeared suddenly in the wall and several Ravagers roared, brandishing their weapons as they burst through the smoke screen. Yondu almost barreled into one, but caught himself as they trained their weapons on their captain.

“Behind me!” he yelled. The Ravagers turned and opened fire, forcing the Kree bastard to dive out of the way. Yondu looked up and saw a stretch of roving drill bots, running across the ceiling like well-trained ants. When the Kree punched something in his hand, they lit up with that brilliant white light. Yondu shouted, “Move!” and they dived forward to avoid the wall that dropped down. It disappeared in a blink and the balls rolled back, scissoring across the ceiling as they trailed after Gor’Tun. If he was making a retreat, they were going to use it. “Come on, boys, we gotta get to the library!”

No one disagreed. They thumped their chests and fell in line. Wasn’t a moment later they were set on by Sakaarans, but the Ravagers made quick work of them. Narblik had a shiny figurine tucked into his elbow that he bludgeoned one of the soldiers with, while the rest gutted the others. Nobody was coming up from the rear. It seemed that Gor’Tun had given up the chase and while Yondu knew that wasn’t true at all, he focused on getting them forward, rounding up anybody in a red coat and dragging their asses along. He had a group of twenty when they found Scrote who was wielding some heavy cannon artillery.

“Where you get that?”

“Found it,” Scrote answered, and hefted it with a shrug.

“Where we goin’?” someone else asked as they rammed through another wall.

“Boss said library,” another answered.

“What, fer learnin’?”

“No, ya yap-jawed morons,” Yondu said. He led them down a short hall and saw what he was looking for. It stood there at the end, calling to them in all its ridiculous glory. Yondu threw open a set of huge doors carved with intricate scrolls and inlaid with a shiny metallic filigree. The enormous library stood before them, light filtering in through the hole in the ceiling. Yondu stared up at with a crooked grin, imagining all the structural damage they’d managed to inflict on the fuckin’ Kree’s house. While there were a few small fires taking up the book cases and a wrecked M-ship dangling there from the ceiling, the place was littered with treasures. Yondu held his arms up wide and said, “Fer stealin’.”

To say their eyes lit up with the innocent glee of children is to say they weren’t a bunch of sweaty space pirates come to wreck a bunch of shit. The Ravagers gasped, cooed, hollered, what have you as they poured into the library. They were quick to ransack valuable but portable items, leaving the stone statues and priceless paintings. Seemed Gortaz was smart enough to pry the holoprojectors off the wall for any of the really impressive paintings and tucked them into his pockets.

Yondu watched them work only a moment before he started for the back of the room, heading for the exit that would put him closer to the atrium. He left two men by the door to keep an eye out as he ran on ahead. He spotted the door there, more discreet than the set at the entrance and covered by a picturesque scene of a Kree woman bathing in soft pink water, her corded arms and legs laced with intricate battle scars. Yondu ripped the small orb outta the wall. The painting flickered away, leaving a blank wall behind her and the plain door set into it.

Yondu scratched at the dark scruff on his chin, eyeing the wall. He touched the piece of hardware back behind his ear.

“Quill,” he barked, and waited as the slow steady static washed through his skull. “Quill!”

As per usual, he got nothing. He didn’t like that at all.

There wasn’t a handle or a sensor anywhere to read him, so Yondu called out to Scrote to bring his big ass cannon on over and _make_ him a door. Scrote was more than happy to oblige. He saddled over, set himself in a sturdy stance, and shot the cannon like it was a standard blaster. It knocked him nearly a foot back, his heels skidding on the floor, but the door was gone.

“Thank _you_ ,” Yondu said as he stepped through.

“Anytime, sir,” Scrote called back before he returned to looting with the others. Neither of them knew how many more rounds the weapon had, but Yondu wasn’t gonna look a gift Hartolian Spunt in the mandibles.

There were a few maze-like hallways again, twisting about, doubling back, but Yondu didn’t run into as much trouble as he did going in. He’d holstered his blaster and the Yaka arrow was tucked safely by his side. He weren’t harebrained enough to say it was “easy” but it was quieter. Almost like he could catch his breath.

There was a noise up ahead. It came outta nowhere, just a short painful cry followed by nothing. Yondu knew that voice. The sound made his throat close and he ran, heart skipping as he balled his hands into fists. He whistled. The Yaka arrow flew up next to him, hovering over his shoulder. He took the corner, a hand absently glancing off the wall before he barreled into a steady frame, sending the other person flying. The blaster was up in his face soon as they steadied themselves, but nobody fired. Yondu whistled only to put the arrow away.

“Capt’n!” said Tullk, clapping the Ravager Captain once on the shoulder. The reunion was short-lived as Yondu looked past him and saw Kraglin there on the ground. Tullk followed his gaze and winced. “Tried to get him to stay on the ship, sir.”

“Don’t sell me out so quick,” Kraglin said, holding his side as he crouched next to the wall. Yondu kneeled down in front of him and, without a word, took Kraglin’s hand away from the wound there in his stomach. The Xandarian grimaced, his skin flushed a dull blue. “Ain’t so bad, sir.”

“Bullshit,” Yondu said as he grabbed Kraglin’s chin, steadying him. “How?”

“Ship fell.”

“When?”

“Half a cycle,” Kraglin answered and coughed, wilting into the wall for support.

“And Quill?” Yondu asked as he eyed his first mate, cupping his face and giving it a quick slap when his eyes started to flutter.

“Sir,” Kraglin started, rolling his head a little, “I don’t rightly know. Don’t, mm, don’t rightly care, neither.”

“Don’t be petulant,” Yondu said, but held Kraglin’s neck as he settled back. “We gotta getchu up to the ship. Doc’ll patch this up and get you back to your duties.”

“Sir, can I be frank?” Kraglin asked, his voice getting distant.

“No. Y’can’t,” Yondu answered.

“Aw, fuck you, sir.”

Yondu chuckled, patted Kraglin’s sweaty cheek again before he looked back at Tullk. “How bad’s the ship, then?”

“Bad,” Tullk answered truthfully. Yondu wasn’t sure if he appreciated the candor, but supposed it was necessary. Time weren’t on their side just then. “Don’t actually know how he got it to fly in the first place, sir.”

“Can _you_ fly it?” Yondu asked, but knew the answer before it left his mouth.

The only solution was to get Kraglin to the Ravagers and take him to the nearest working M-ship. Yondu would fly him back to the Eclector himself, Gor’Tun and his men be damned, but they still didn’t know if Peter was okay. And they needed that chip to hand over to Irani Rael. It was their best bet to getting work in Xandarian space again. Honest work, right up until they decided to stop being honest. He turned towards Tullk, even with his hand still firmly glued to Kraglin’s neck, his first mate burning up.

“Is there _any_ word from Quill?” Yondu asked.

“No, sir,” Tullk answered solemnly. He bowed his head as Yondu flinched, his lips curling up into a sneer. He almost stood when Tullk added, “But he took care o’ them soldiers right quick. Last we saw, he was headed towards the vault, just like ye ordered.”

“He killed the Sakaarans you told me were set on him?”

“Aye, Capt’n.”

Yondu flicked his eyes between Tullk and Kraglin, calculating the time they had before Kraglin was completely useless. If Quill was in the vents, that was something Yondu could check off his list. For now, at least. But he wasn’t gonna let his first mate perish there on the floor. He nodded, told Tullk where they were going, and slid an arm underneath Kraglin’s armpits.

“Come on,” he said, hoisting Kraglin to his feet. The Xandarian cried out and the sound made Yondu’s guts run cold, but they got to their feet anyways. “I know,” he said quietly, “I know. Come on. We’re gonna get you home.”

Kraglin bit down on his bottom lip and Yondu wasn’t sure if it was from coughing or his teeth pierced skin, but there was a small splatter of blue blood dribbling to his chin. “Sir,” he started, hissing through his gritted teeth.

“No, didn’t say you could be frank,” said Yondu, hoisting most of Kraglin’s weight.

“Yeah, but fuckin’ Kree,” he said, his head wobbling a little before he dropped it to his chest.

“Yeah,” said Yondu, carrying them forward one step at a time. “I know. Fuckin’ Kree.”

“Like _that_ fuckin’ Kree?” Tullk asked, lifting his two blasters towards the hallway. Yondu saw the drill bots roll across the ceiling, creating a perfect line that would slice them down the middle, as Gor’Tun stepped into the hallway. Yondu rammed into Tullk as the drill bots hummed with energy and Gor’Tun’s guillotine dropped from the ceiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Don't look a gift Hartolian Spunt in the mandibles" may perhaps be my favorite thing about this chapter.


	7. Figure It Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter's had a few lessons in thievery, so now it's time to put that to the test. Also, Kraglin's not looking so hot. Feeling hot, yes. Looking? Nope. Yondu needs to hurry up and get back to the ship, but he's not going to leave his favorite Terran behind. Right?

“You’re destroying my _home._ ”

They were alive. Yondu did a quick check of his limbs and organs and found them all to be relatively unharmed. Kraglin was draped on his side, but the only damage done to him was that metal threaded through his guts. Yondu glanced up and watched the drill bots swivel on the ceiling, drawing the cape of white light closer. Yondu forked his tongue and whistled his Yaka arrow towards it, stabbing one of the drill bots so it dropped to the floor with a loud bang. The sound distracted Gor’Tun just enough that he was able to get a shot off with the blaster, clipping the Kree in the left arm by his elbow. Gor’Tun spun against the pain but did not lose his own weapon.

“Some home,” said Yondu as he flicked his head and guided the arrow through another drill bot.

Little flashes of space opened up in the curtain of light. Tullk shouted across the barrier and Yondu dragged Kraglin over just enough that the Ravager behind them could fire through the wall. Tullk had amazing aim, but the sheet of light obscured his target and he didn’t hit anything particularly damaging. It did give them one advantage. The Kree was looking at the wall and had decided he needed to protect his precious little guillotine. Whatever remote device he had wired into his hand meant he had to concentrate on the movements and will the drill bots to regroup, protecting him from Tullk there on the other side while he picked off Yondu and Kraglin. All Yondu had to do was whistle.

The drill bots huddled together, blasting down their bright white wall that could slice them into neat little cubes, probably carve up some ribbons to sprinkle atop if Gor’Tun wanted. As they got closer, they hummed louder, vibrating off each other. Yondu laughed a short bark of a sound before he turned his arrow and zipped it along, popping them off the ceiling. Gor’Tun twitched, pulling them apart, making them scatter across the walls. But it left him vulnerable to Tullk’s attack and he had them twin blasters on him, shooting through the widening gap in the wall. The Kree shouted insults as he fired back, slamming his fist into the wall behind him.

“This will _not_ stand!”

“Yeah,” said Tullk, who got two shots off straight into Gor’Tun’s armored knees. The Kree buckled. “An’ neither will you, ya bloody crotch-stain.”

“Don’t go an’ put that in my head,” muttered Kraglin, dropping his forehead again onto Yondu’s shoulder. Yondu shrugged, tapping Kraglin on the chest a few times to keep him awake. He moaned, but his eyes fluttered and he propped himself up right.

“I know,” Yondu said quietly, leaving his hand there on Kraglin’s chest. “Keep with me.”

“I’m here, ain’t I?” Kraglin asked and looked around a little, genuinely surprised. “Right?”

Tullk had raced over to the downed Kree and put his flash-hot blaster barrel up against Gor’Tun’s temple. It sizzled the flesh. Gor’Tun flinched away, giving a yelp before Tullk stumped his foot into Gor’Tun’s chest.

“Want I should take ‘im out, sir?” Tullk asked over his shoulder.

“Hold on a minute.” Yondu whistled his arrow back and fit it into the holster at his side. He helped Kraglin down the hallway so they could all lord over the Kree flinching on the ground. Yondu smiled when he put his boot down on the mess of a kneecap that’d been split open by the blaster. “Got a question fer our host. Stop yer screamin’.”

“Get! Off!” Gor’Tun yelled, squirming under both Tullk and Yondu’s feet. “Stop! What do you want?”

“Me? I’d like yer head on a platter,” said Yondu, who ground his toe left and right. The skin and muscle squelched under the sole of his boot, drowned out by Gor’Tun’s protests. “But I ain’t here for my whims and wants. Got sent by Nova Prime herself.”

“ _Why_?” Gor’Tun managed. He tossed his head back into the floor when Yondu moved his foot again. “Should have guessed.” Gor’Tun panted, pounding the floor with his fist a few times as he forced himself to recover.

“Guessed what, huh?”

“Ravagers.” The way Gor’Tun spit the word, sounded like a curse. Yondu was glad he felt that way. “Teaming up. With some…Xandarian _scum_.”

“Teaming up’s a bit strong,” said Yondu. He glanced over at Kraglin, who, despite being Xandarian, didn’t seem to mind the after-mentioned adjective. Kraggles was a bit of a scumbag himself, self-appointed. Yondu might even say that’s why he loved the scrawny idiot. “I’d say ‘hired,’ wouldn’t you?”

“Sure,” Kraglin answered, softly slurred through his teeth. He was shaking, but he managed a lazy lopsided grin for his captain.

“Wouldn’t you, Tullk?”

“Aye, Capt’n.”

“I don’t care w—”

Yondu kicked Gor’Tun’s leg hard enough he heard something snap, and the Kree was back to hollering at the top of his lungs. Didn’t seem like the blue sort were much for torture. They hadn’t even started removing fingernails or nothing and he was practically blubbering. But he was being a dick about his answers, so maybe there _was_ some fight in him yet.

“So, like I said, I was hired on business. Hey, pay attention. I was hired to recover something what you went and _stole_ from Xandar. Seems they’re quite keen on getting it back.” Gor’Tun’s eyes were closed and his head was lolling back and forth on the floor. Yondu nodded to Tullk, who nudged the Kree’s face before he knelt down and gave him a good slap. “What I say? I said ‘pay _attention_.’”

“If. You.”

“Ugh, hit ‘im again,” said Yondu. Tullk gave him a quick backhand. “You listening? I want an answer. Are. You. _Listening_?”

“Yes,” Gor’Tun answered at last eyes a-flutter.

“Good. Now, we got a man with us who should be—”

They hadn’t had much time to begin with, and what they had seemed to have run out. Kraglin’s frame went limp and he nearly slipped clear outta Yondu’s arms. Yondu pivoted in time to catch his first mate, but Gor’Tun’s leg was free and he took it upon himself to twist out from under Tullk’s boot, diving for the blaster that had been tossed aside. He grazed the hilt, grappling with the space there between his fingers when Tullk, reacting simply to being thrown off-balance, opened fire. Gor’Tun’s face was gone, his chest a crater soon after.

“Shite!”

“What’n the seven hells?” Yondu shouted.

“Well, he was reachin’ fer his gun, sir, an’ I just—”

“Ya coulda shot me!”

“I wouldn’a worry ‘bout that, sir.”

“I _am_ worryin’!”

As much as he wanted to give a fuss, Yondu was crouched down, holding onto Kraglin’s head so it didn’t smack the ground. He pushed his thumb into the Xandarian’s neck, shook his head, and tried his fingers instead. Heartbeat was fast and flittery. He was breathing. But his skin was _hot_. Too hot. Dry to the touch, even.

“We gotta get ‘im up to Doc now,” said Yondu quietly.

“An’ Peter, sir?”

Yondu’s mouth twisted, his fingers trembling around Kraglin’s head. They had plenty of the crew in the library. If they were sure of his position, if someone got him to answer, then they could monitor the Terran’s progress while Yondu brought Kraglin home.

“Try the link again,” said Yondu quietly.

Tullk took a deep, steadying breath before he lifted his wrist up to his face, turning a dial to open up a channel.

“Quill,” he said, even-toned. “Quill, can ye hear us?”

“Boy, you best answer,” Yondu growled. He smoothed his palm down across Kraglin’s furnace of a forehead. “I swear, if yer dead, I’m makin’ Terran meat pie.”

“Goes without sayin’,” Tullk said absently as he twisted the dial on his wrist again. “Quill? Come on, lad.”

“Mmrum.”

Yondu looked down at Kraglin, who flopped his head into the crook of his captain’s elbow. “Hey, relax, alright. We gotchu.”

“Nnruh.”

“Yer just talkin’ gibberish,” said Yondu. He patted Kraglin’s chest again, gentle as a wooly luft. “Don’t gotta waste our time with gibberish now, so hush up while we figure this out.”

Kraglin muttered again, but looked like he was coming too, best he could, as he reached a thin hand up for Yondu’s face. Yondu flinched away from the affection out of reflex more than anything, but Kraglin wasn’t trying to paw his face for nothing. He flicked his finger at the transmitter curving around his ear before he lost his strength and his arm slapped back down to his chest. Yondu quickly scooped the hardware off the side of his head and pressed it into Kraglin’s hands. Kraglin fumbled with the thing. He was blinking too much and his fingers weren’t working the way he wanted, but he finally clicked in the piece he wanted before he closed his eyes. Across the little transmitter they could all hear that annoying chant of Terran music pickling the air.

“If he didn’t cry every time it happened,” Yondu started when he grabbed the transmitter out of Kraglin’s limp hands and wound it tight around his ear, “I’d snap that music box o’ his and throw it in the incinerator.”

*

“Aaaaah-ee-aaaa-ee-I’m… _hooked_ on a feelin’.” Peter sat cross-legged in the vents, prying a small piece of metal out of the ankle of his rocket boots, a piece of wire twisted around his hands. “’M high on believin’. That you’re in love with _me_.”

He wanted to take off the helmet and strip the wire casing back with his teeth, but he was sure the air was absolutely poison and he was too afraid to take it off until they were back on the Eclector. So, he had to make do with the splint of metal from his boot. A tangle of wires spilled out of the control panel in front of him, blue and red and green and yellow wires backlit by a neon purple glow. The thing was hooked up to a pretty ornate security system. Looked like Luphomoid product, something along the lines of the R11-700 series. Probably took months to wire the whole building and set all those codes and access points. But if there was _anything_ the Ravagers had taught him, it’s that security systems like the R11-700 series relied on lots of cameras, lots of lasers and what not, and the simplest override Peter had ever seen. Kudos to them for hiding the panel like this up in the vents.

“I’m hooked on a feeling!” Peter yelled into his helmet as he pulled three red and black striped wires out of the wall, reaching through the tangles for the predictable Gyrgi processor, the purple crystal that was creating the light. And, of course, lazy bastards relying on their security backups hadn’t even reset the standard password. Peter tapped the crystal in a practiced order, just as Narblik had shown him when they were busting a central teller, waiting for the crew to get back from their heist on Ipsis VI. A short pulse went through the crystal. The wires that had been threaded together fried. Peter pulled two more out, keeping the wire around his hands just in case, before he climbed through the now defunct bank of lasers they’d set as a perimeter around the room ahead.

Peter hummed to himself. He felt pretty good, now that he was actually doing something. He was good with figuring out puzzles, pulling things apart, and felt some validation at his skill for breaking through to the vault without so much as an alarm triggered or some security guard alerted. There hadn’t been as many explosions lately, so he felt pretty confident about putting his music back on, drowning out the quiet hum of air being blow about the vents. Best to listen to the 1974 hit than the annoying howl of the AC like some distant alien ghost. And, yeah, okay, he _had_ turned up the volume. So? Nobody was trying to hail him anyways. If something _really_ bad happened, Peter was absolutely certain Kraglin would pull some weird stunt and override Peter’s helmet. Plus, the rest of the Ravagers were probably busy stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down. He figured let them have their fun while he got to deal with the important stuff.

“Hmmhmm hmm hmm, keep it up girl,” he sang, and wiggled himself around so his feet were pointed towards the room. “Yeah, you hmm hmm _hmm_.”

There was a drop off between the wall where the vent was and the giant metal contraption that had to be Gor’Tun’s vault. It was almost like a moat surrounding the thing, dropping miles and miles into the ground. He wanted to spit and see how far it’d fall, but, again, he was _not_ taking off that helmet. There was a doorway with a short rail that looked like it might extend across the chasm and attach to a small platform in front of the vault door. Peter didn’t have to worry about any of the cameras overhead because they had all been shut down. He turned the dial down on his Walkman as he put his feet out of the vent, ready to leap off and activate his rocket boots, when there was the painfully familiar shout in his helmet.

“Shut that _damn_ music off!”

“Yondu?” Peter asked, his heart skipping as he skittered back into the vent. “Oh my god, you almost made me fall!”

“I’ll do more than that once I get my hands on you,” said Yondu. “Where are you?”

“I’m just outside the vault! Jeeze, I’m doin’ what you _told_ me to,” said Peter. “Why’re you _yellin’_ at me?”

“’Cause yer wastin’ all our time, Boy! Why ain’t you in there yet and collected that chip like we sent you to do.”

“Okay, well, first of all, blame Rubes for taking my entry point in the library, cause that was _way_ closer than I was when I started. And, second, okay, uh, did you get a hold of Kraglin? And Tullk? Because the ship was hit. It was _hit_ , Yondu, okay, so I had to learn how to fly, which, by the way, no thanks to _you_. And then there were these Sakaarans outta _no_ where who—”

“I didn’t ask fer yer belly achin’,” said Yondu. “How long you gonna be?”

“I don’t know,” said Peter. They didn’t have visuals on each other, but they were sure scowling in just about the same fashion, it would’ve been like looking in a distorted blue mirror. “How long do I have?”

“Well, y’can’t take Kraglin’s ship back. And we need t’ get up to the Eclector _now_.”

“Why?” asked Peter, sitting up a little straighter. “What happened?”

“Shit happened, son. So I’ll give ya five.”

“Five? Minutes? Yondu, I haven’t even tried—”

“Figure it out.”

“That’s not fair!” Peter yelled, but he could already tell that either Yondu had signed off or he wasn’t listening or he didn’t care. Maybe a combination. Peter kicked at the air, throwing his hands out in frustration before he shook his head at the wall. It wasn’t fair. Five minutes? Was he _insane_? Yes, absolutely, but Peter wasn’t going to be left behind on an alien planet with an atmosphere that was _deadly_ to Terrans. He was just going to have to figure it out.

“Figure it out,” said Peter, pouting as he put his feet back out over the ledge again. “Oh, I’ll figure it out. Just you watch.”

He kicked himself out of the vent and started to fall, clicking the rockets on and gliding over the chasm as easy as a breeze. When he reached the short platform in front of the door, a red light started to blink, slow at first but building momentum. Peter stared at it through the tinted lens of his helmet, dawning on the outcome with an encroaching beep noise.

“No, wait, I—”

The door exploded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If that ain't a cheesy cliffhanger, then my name isn't Gouda. (Yes, I'll show myself out now, thank you)


	8. The Iv'ro Lan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the vault! The thing this story is named after. We get into it! I knew we would. Whew, good job, everyone. Oh? Oh....no...no, what's happening. Why is it tilting?

The best leather around can be found on a little primitive planet in the Halfway, a swath of space with the most jumps per standard common unit of void, nestled near the Jor system. It’s a red world, lots of dust, limited vegetation or animal life, with the biggest goddamn worms ever. And their hide is something beautiful. Tough. Warm. Sturdy. Doesn’t burn, has a higher tolerance to deep freezes, and when it’s treated in the right hand, it’s runs like melted butter. Man who wears that kinda leather is safer, tougher; man who wears that kinda leather can take a few blows. It’s hard to find and expensive to boot, unless you know the routes to places like a Sovereign-run port and fixed yourself into stealing shipments. Yondu, who had the Eclector stretched on a thin diet of scraps _at best_ , always made sure they had plenty of Halfway leather for the Tailor.

So thank his lucky stars that they’d decided to gift Peter with a _second_ Ravager coat before they sent him off on this _stupid_ goddamn mission. He sat up on the other side of the room, blown clear across the chasm from the blast. A hairline crack ran down the left lens of his helmet. Peter stared at it a moment, getting his bearings, and was a little awed to see the crack shrink as the glass repaired itself.

“Well, that’s something,” said Peter distantly, splayed out on the floor.

He was hesitant to move in case he’d be forced to come to terms with a few broken bones or something. But the clock was ticking. Peter tapped his fist against the ground. “Come on. Come on, we don’t have time for this. Come on.”

With a dramatic swing of his legs, he leapt up from the ground, springing to his feet. He stood there, looking down at himself, and patted at the few scorch mark blemishes across the front of his coat. Cosmetic damage at best.

“Well, alright then,” he said and laughed. “Let’s do this!”

However, when he stepped over to the edge to fly over, Peter clacked his boot on to trigger the rocket, same as Tullk had showed him. A little puff of smoke billowed up from his ankles. The rocket stuttered, making him jig a little in the air. But it wasn’t going to get him across.

“Oh come on!” Peter yelled, stomping his boot into the floor. It didn’t even shiver this time. Nothing. “Don’t do this.”

It did.

“Yondu?” Peter cried, slapping his hand against the side of his helmet. “The boots aren’t working.”

“If yer just messin’ around, I don’t—”

“No,” said Peter, relieved that the Centaurian had answered. “No, there was this…like…the door exploded, and I’m fine, but—”

“What door exploded?”

“The vault door. Listen, I’m fine, I—”

“Damnit, Boy, I told ya not to mess around. You get into the vault?”

“Would you _listen_?” Peter yelled. “The boots aren’t _working_. I got shot across the thing and there’s this thing between us and I can’t get to the vault door.”

“Is it open?”

Peter glanced up, his hand pressed firmly to the side of his helmet. The door was right the other side of the chasm, but whatever had been triggered was a defense built outside of it. The door was still firmly in place. Smoking a little around the edges, but clearly still there.

“No,” Peter finally answered.

“I ain’t gonna say this again, son. Figure it _out_.”

“That’s not even an answer!” Peter was laughing a little, hysterical as he shrieked into the speaker next to his mouth. “What’s to figure out? Oh my god, never mind.”

“You need someone—”

“No! Forget it! I’ll just _figure it out_ ,” Peter snapped.

He guessed where the communication button was based on what Kraglin had showed him and pressed it. Yondu didn’t answer and the helmet didn’t disappear, so he figured he’d done something right.

Peter plonked himself there on the edge of the chasm, not afraid of potentially slipping and falling in. He grabbed one of the boots, hooking it across his other knee, so he could get to the tech of the propulsion system. Again, no tools. In fact, he’d been the one who took a little part off the boot for the control panel in the vents—not that he’d ever admit this might have compromised the integrity of the entire system and caused it to be on the fritz. There were a few sparks there on his ankles. A small metal tube was bent with a rupture at the kink. It had to have been leaking fluid or gas or whatever. Peter thumbed it, immediately drawing his hand back like he was going to put it in his mouth.

“Jeeze!” Peter cried, shaking his hand. There was a small red welt where the metal had burned him. “Okay, so, that’s not good.”

There were a few gentle prods padded with the edge of his coat as he tried to bend the piece back into place. It didn’t matter much if the fuel was gone, but Peter figured these were for a full-grown Xandarian. If he could just get it jump a little, just enough to get across the chasm and back, he could get them properly fixed later. The point was he needed to get in the vault before whatever arbitrary time Yondu placed on him ran out.

“Bet this is a test,” Peter said aloud, because he liked talking out loud more than just sitting there in _complete_ silence. It made him feel less lonely. “Bet this is all some elaborate thing, right, like he must’ve known that door was gonna blow since he had those blueprints of the thing. He knew. What a jerk. He did this on purpose. Well, see if I just take my time with this, huh? Nope. No, he’ll leave you behind, that’s a stupid thought. Alright, come on, let’s do it again.”

Peter had loosened the ties around his ankles and used some of the heat from his left boot to solder a quick and dirty patch on the hole by melting some of the wire he had wrapped around his hands. Once it was cool enough, he began wrapping the ties from his ankles more around the broken joint so that it wouldn’t leak anymore. The other boot was fine. It took a little work, twisting his ankles into uncomfortable degrees, but he managed to siphon off some of the liquid from the left boot into the right. Peter didn’t think it would take much to break that seal.

“Alright. One shot. Let’s do this. You’re A+ super Star Lord now.”

Peter clenched his fists, ignoring the slow trickle of sweat down his back as he clicked the boots on. His right boot spluttered, rocking up and down. He balanced mostly on his left foot and skipped across the chasm, wobbling unsteadily on the broken stream. The boot clicked before he made it all the way across and his left foot skated out from under him. Peter twisted in the air, clacking his heels together as he reached for the ledge, falling chest first into the platform. He scrambled, but had a good hold. While his legs were swinging out beneath him he noticed the dull red line about at shin level that crossed in front of the door. Peter scoffed and kicked himself up onto the platform, struggling to get upright without breaking the red light.

“Tripwire,” he said with a laugh, looking back and forth between the two sensors. “Of course it was.”

Knowing now what had triggered the explosion, Peter carefully worked his way to the side, reaching up for a panel set into the wall. It was much easier now that there wasn’t a blinking light, and he could pry open the hatch there about as easily as he did with the control panel in the vent. This was easy. Wires and stuff, that’s something he could figure out. Tullk said he had a knack for it, so, he felt pretty confident as he reached in for another circuit board, a maze of familiar purple crystal, and laughed when he found an honest to god cheat code written in a little chicken scratch hand glued to the back of the panel.

“Amateurs,” Peter said with a laugh. “Relied too much on your bomb. Like that’s gonna stop _me_.”

While Peter couldn’t read Kree and the translator chip only did audio languages, it wasn’t hard to figure out the combination that opened the vault. There was a pleasant churning of gears raining down the wall in quick succession and then a pop, a hiss before the door separated from the seams of the door and sucked back into the vault.

“Yondu?” Peter said after he turned on his comm again. “I made it in. What exactly am I lookin’ for anyways?”

Yondu didn’t answer. Was he still being grouchy about how long it was taking? Because like _that_ was totally fair.

“Yondu?” Peter asked again. “Yondu, please don’t tell me you guys already left. Yondu!”

Peter threw his hands up again, letting them slap his sides as the Ravager captain gave him nothing but silence. This wasn’t his fault. He had done everything as fast as he could without anybody else’s help or nothing. Tullk helped. Yeah, okay, and Kraglin helped too. But that was _it_. Why was he being punished because nobody thought to check if there was a tripwire?

“If I grab the wrong thing, you can’t get mad at me,” Peter said uselessly into the com before he entered the vault.

*

“Don’t crash my fuckin’ ship.” Yondu fixed the last strap, tugging at the restraint across Kraglin’s scrawny thighs. It wasn’t ideal, but it wouldn’t be good if he was jostled every which way during the storm outside Gor’Tun’s shield. “You do, I’ll kill ya.”

“I’ll drive us into a star ‘fore I let you find me with a ding on yer boat,” said Tullk, white-knucklin’ the joystick. “Sir, not to repeat myself or nothin’, but why don’t _you_ fly up to the Eclector and I wait behind fer the boy?”

“Because I gave an order.”

“Fair enough, sir,” said Tullk.

Yondu knelt down by Kraglin’s head and gave him a quick, chaste kiss on the forehead. It wasn’t planned. He hardly let his lips touch Kraglin before he sat up again. Just felt like the Xandarian needed some good luck charm from Yondu before he went. Kraglin’s skin was hot and salty, and he gave a pitiful moan at Yondu’s touch.

“We’ll be back,” said Yondu. “So be there when we come home.” He looked Kraglin up and down, searing the image there in his brain like he meant to leave a scar. “Else I’ll find ya on the other side and kill ya again.”

There wasn’t a smile. Nothing to say that Kraglin heard him. But Yondu squeezed his fingers one last time, more to assuage his conscience than anything. Then he nodded over at Tullk, gave him one last threat, and skipped out of the M-ship before he could change his mind. Not that he would. His boy was still back in the vault and he wouldn’t leave Tullika without him.

*

The space inside the vault was clean with sterile metal walls and floors and a soft yellow-tinted glow. The entire surface shimmered. It felt lighter inside, almost weightless as Peter stepped through the door. He could feel his arms lift up around him and as he stepped, he bounced a little higher. Peter flexed the last of the wire in his palms, cutting just a little into his skin. Enough to feel grounded.

“Okay,” said Peter, trying to tip toe in the clumsy boots so he wouldn’t bounce so high he could touch the ceiling. “So then…that’s neat.”

It wasn’t.

It was very not neat.

It was super not neat, except that the space was absolutely clean, so, by definition, it was neat.

But still.

The room seemed to be rotating ever so gently on a vertical access. And there, at the very center, radiating that distorted anti-gravity field, was a long jagged crystal. It didn’t look particularly fancy. It wasn’t polished, it was a dull almost rusty color with a bit of a patina on the top and bottom, some rust accumulating at the base. It stayed perfectly still as the room rotated, giving Peter the sense that it was the anchor to this whole thing.

“So…you’re it, huh? You’re the thing.” Peter clapped his hands together and crouched, ready to spring. “Alright then. Let’s go, Thing.”

The leap was over exaggerated. Peter felt like time slowed as he flailed through the air, his body lifted by the anti-gravity field emanating from the crystal. His arms wheeled around, trying to slow himself down as he twisted over the top. He grabbed the crystal, ignoring a slight numbing sensation that pinged through his hand, and felt himself drift towards the corner of the room. The anti-gravity started to dampen, and soon he was falling faster, harder. The room was spinning as well and Peter turned so he didn’t collide face first into the vault.

With the crystal removed from the central holding key, the room no longer had an axis. Its spin was starting to warble, losing its momentum. Peter crashed into the hard wall, but couldn’t seem to pick himself up again. The door, which had separated from the wall and stood there, hovering slightly in the air, clipped one of the rotating walls and produced and awful screeching wail. Peter instinctively clapped his hands to his ears, but they were covered by the helmet and he couldn’t block out the sound. So, instead, Peter screamed over it, blocking out the sound with his own voice.

There were frantic pings of light before another final flash and the tripwire activated an explosion. The vault shook. Peter shook with it. When he felt the floor drop, he realized that the vault was beginning to slip. It had been held up over the pit by the crystal in his hand and would soon plummet. Peter flipped onto his back, watching the door spin above him. He had one shot. He gritted his teeth, hand wrapped tight around the crystal, and kicked off the wall, clapping his heels together right as he reached the floating door. There was that unsteady splutter, a guttering jerk through the air. Peter thought he might not get it to ignite. He clapped his heels together once more, once more, once more and right when his fingers reached up and grazed the panel, ignition.

Peter flew through the entryway. His heel was knocked by the vault’s doorframe and he stumbled, but kept his chin up. He shot across just as the vault slipped away into darkness. There wasn’t a bang, not right away, and Peter could feel his stomach drop as he realized how deep that chasm must go. Even as he sailed across and his feet touched sturdy ground, that vault was still falling.

“Oh my god,” Peter said, pressing himself against the sturdy door. He clapping his hand up to his chest, pressing the crystal there. “Oh my god, I did it. I did it!”

“Yes, we’re all _very_ proud,” said a familiar voice, almost like they were bored. Peter swiveled on the short platform only to see Yondu there in the entryway. “Get over here, son, we gotta _move._ ”

“I just, like, leapt out of a spiraling death trap,” said Peter, pointing at the pit behind them. “Could you give me a little credit or something?”

“Yeah,” said Yondu, and grabbed a handful of Peter’s Ravager jacket, yanking him back into the hallway. “I’ll give ya credit. But let’s go.”

“Why _are_ you in such a hurry?” Peter asked, falling in line beside Yondu as they ran through the now eerily quiet Kree home. “Where is everybody?”

“Hauling back to the ship.”

“Did they get Kraglin and Tullk?”

“Yeah,” said Yondu, looking down a crossway before he took a left. “C’mon. Stop flappin’ yer gums.”

“I’m just _ask_ ing, like, seriously, Yondu.” Peter waved the crystal in front of him. “I got into that vault, didn’t I? I can ask.”

Yondu grabbed the crystal from Peter’s hand, almost dropping it before he tucked it safely into his Ravager coat. He shook out the numb feeling in his fingers and lead them on.

“You did. Now I wanna get outta here.”

“Yeah,” said Peter. “We all do. So—”

“Shut up!” Yondu wheeled around and grabbed Peter’s shoulders, shaking him as a little bit of spit flew from Yondu’s mouth as a fleck on Peter’s red lens to his helmet. Peter blinked, stumbling to a dead stop. “We gotta get up to the Eclector, okay? Can you stop asking questions until we do?”

Peter didn’t answer. He shook a little, but he didn’t say nothing. He decided he never would again.

“Good. Do that.” Yondu stood up again and took off.

They came to a big set of doors and Yondu raced through into an empty library. The place looked ransacked. There was papers everywhere, footprints and smashed pottery. Holes in the wall and in display cases where all the good stuff and been. And there, standing in the center while flipping through a book that was clearly upside down were Oblo and Scrote.

“Hullo, boys,” said Yondu, kicking Scrote’s spent cannon. Scrote looked mildly perturbed that it had been pushed over, but the fact was that the thing was useless and he wasn’t sure how they’d ever load it with ammunition. “Got the M-ship ready?”

“Yes’sir,” said Oblo, scrambling towards the beat up ship that took up the center of the library. The very same one Rubero had crashed through the ceiling. Oblo and Scrote had been painting on a quick patch job, focusing on any cracks in the hull. It was sealed up tight but questionable if it would actually fly. Oblo waved over and said, “Heya, Pete.”

“Hey, Oblo,” said Peter, despite his aforementioned self-appointed muteness. “Uh, that’s not your ship, Yondu.”

“No, it’ aint.”

“Yeah, but where’s _your_ ship?”

Yondu didn’t answer. He got Rubero’s M-ship open and stomped aboard, pulling up the ship’s computer. It sparked, and there was _clearly_ something wrong with the left engine. Yondu didn’t seem to mind.

“And where’s everybody else?” Peter asked, coming onto the deck. He took the copilot chair without asking. “Where’s Krag—”

“Sent ‘em back,” said Yondu. He flipped a few toggles, nodding at a red warning light before he flipped that off too. “They was givin’ a bunch of guff how they had everything and why don’t we go an’ spend it somewhere. So, instead of all of us sitting around here with our heads up each other’s asses, I sent ‘em back.”

“Yeah, but that—”

“Eclector?” Yondu asked as he hailed the ship.’

“Captain,” one of the Nav team answered. “Storm that’s rolling over from the western hemisphere’s gonna be on ya in ten.”

“Yeah,” said Yondu. He started the engines. The left one squealed like a dying animal, gurgling a few chunky metal sounds. “Figure it’d be rough. We got everyone onboard?”

“Aye, Captain, read out here says everyone’s back but you lot.”

“How’s our patient?”

“Which one?” the Nav asked with a dark chuckle. Peter wasn’t sure if it was really a joke or not. “Ones with broken bones and all have been set. Doc says we could use a supply run.”

“First thing once we get paid,” said Yondu. “What about…?”

“Far as I know, breathing, sir,” the Nav answered. Peter watched Yondu’s jaw muscles leap. “I’ll hail you if anything changes.”

“Copy that. We’ll be back home before the next cycle.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Yondu didn’t tell them to put on their seat belts. Peter did anyways, clamping it down across his chest and leaning back into the chair. Threat of a storm already had his stomach doing flips. He felt the centrifugal force punch the air outta his lungs as Yondu shot them through the ceiling of the library, firing straight up. The dome loomed clear, pristine with its deceptively calm skies and Peter could only imagine what was going on the other side. He wasn’t gonna get any protests out anyhow. Yondu seemed in quite a hurry to get them back to the Eclector.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That Ravager leather, man, what a thing, I'm assuming. Anyways, this was fun! I just like Yondu getting grumpy cause he's *worried*


	9. He Didn't Say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kraglin's being patched up and Peter, who finally hears the news, thinks its all his fault. When he hides from Yondu's wrath, it's up to Tullk and Oblo to go and fetch him.

“Where in ta seven hells did tha’ daft boy get to then?”

Tullk slapped the wall, the reverb wobbling through the thin metal before he turned away from Quill’s room. He’d turned it upside, outside, inside, this way and that way to see if perhaps that little Terran shite were hiding under the bed again. He figured there was no point going into the vents. Boy had just come back from a mission where they were done with that and didn’t seem right to go crawling into a space so tight it’d make yer shoulders cramp.

“Boy’s smaller than _you_ ,” Tullk sang to himself, putting hands to hips as he looked up towards the ceiling. “Peter! I hafta come up there, I’ll rip yer arms offa ya and down ‘em with some fire sauce!”

He waited. Gave him a sporting chance, actually. Tullk absently itched at the cast on his arm, fixing how he’d saw it off without cutting through his own skin once he was done fetching Peter. Doc said he had to wear it till they was on Xandar, but that was too long and it was too itchy. Nope, it was coming off. Soon as he had Peter. He’d a given up long ago and let Peter sulk wherever he saw fit, but the Captain gave an order and, ‘specially in the mood he were in now, it was best to follow through.

“Serve ‘im up in a meat pie, that’s what I’ll do. Drizzle it with Andori gravy, just like Ma used ta.”

“Just like Ma used to _what_?”

Tullk closed his eyes, counted quick to himself, and wheeled on one o’ the softer ravagers. Not soft, that was too harsh to think. Oblo had gutted more Badoon during their raid on Quasi’s ship than anybody Tullk had seen. The Krylorian could _move_. He just had, well, sort’ve a soft face about him. Dopey eyed sonovabitch made ya put yer guard down.

“I c’n talk about me Ma to my _self_ , Oblo.”

“Sure,” Oblo answered with a shrug. “So can I. ‘Hey ma,’” said Oblo and looked over to the left, squinting at nothing in particular. “‘We just got back from another job. You wouldn’t _believe_ the shit this guy had in his house, Ma. There were all these rooms, right? Dead kids. I mean it. Piles of dead kids. Like, how you even keep them in there? What’s that serve, huh? How sick is that?’” Then Oblo looked to the right and crinkled his brow, changing the pitch of his voice to someone older, gruffer. “’Is that so, son.’” And then back to the left, he said, “Y’know, it is? It _is_. Breaks yer heart, doesn’t it?’ ‘It does.’ ‘Yeah. How’ve you been holding up then, Ma?’ ‘Oh, not so bad. Freezin’ my ass off here on—’”

“Tha’s enough of that,” said Tullk, waiving Oblo’s imaginary mother out of the air.

“Yeah,” said Oblo with a grin. Then he hooked his chin towards Tullk and asked, “What’re you up to, then? You find him?”

“No,” Tullk answered, feeling sour about it. Havin’ _Oblo_ of all the Ravagers on the ship lookin’ after him. “Anybody got an idea where he gone off ta?”

“No,” said Oblo, a little solemn. “Only one I’d trust to crawl into the vents is a little—”

“I _know_ ,” said Tullk.

Oblo, not getting the hint, mimed stabbing himself in the stomach and then dramatically bleeding out. It was in poor taste, but Oblo was enthusiastic about his performance.

Tullk sighed. Quill had done good by them. Got the payload and everything. The whole _point_ of going down to that blasted planet in the first place. Tullk didn’t know the whole of it, but they were set on a course to Xandar, perhaps to help with a certain Xandarian in med bay. Perhaps to deal with that crystal what Peter had fetched. What was it? The Ivory Land? Somethin’ to that affect. _The Point TM_, Tullk thought bitterly, _is Peter’s done good_. _He don’t deserve to be chewed out by the Captain, no matter what the boy’s supposedly done. So if Quill needs ta settle down, he should._

Except there was a song playing on Yondu’s lips, a quick whistle. And Tullk decided he weren’t about to die from that blasted arrow.

“I already regret this, but can ya help me find ‘im?”

“Peter?” Oblo asked, reeling in his tongue from his whole theatrical "playing dead" scene. He shrugged. “Sure. I ain’t got nothin’ else to do.”

*

Sometimes it was hard to remember that Xandarians bled blue. They looked so _human_ , so alike, that seeing it was more like stepping onto a set and spotting a bad paint job. Spilled ink, even. Just not, well, not a lot of _blood_.

Peter was curled up in the shadows, thumbing over a small orange bauble with two perfect eyes situated on the goofy face. He was going to end up rubbing some of the ink off the eyes and then Yondu would get _really_ mad. Or maybe he was already to that breaking point. Maybe Peter would get a lecture on how irresponsible he was right before Yondu loaded him up and took him off to a faraway planet, never to be seen again. Maybe he’d feed Peter to the crew. He was always saying how they’d never tried Terran before. He was probably, like, a delicacy.

Peter sniffled, wiping at his cheek. The helmet had been deactivated once they were back on the Eclector and Peter had run his hands through his hair like a thousand times before Yondu pushed him out of the way.

“Hey!” Peter said, stumbling before he hopped after Yondu. “What the _hell_?”

“Don’t, son,” said Yondu, pointing his blocky blue finger in Peter’s face.

Peter, who was tense from the flight, who didn’t know what the heck had happened, who had pretty much escaped death, like, _seven times_ while they were on Tullika, slapped Yondu’s hand out of the way.

So, Yondu slapped him back.

It stung, but not so much as Peter expected. Hurt more that Yondu had struck him _at all_ , and there was something desperately mean in Yondu’s face when Peter finally looked up. His lip didn’t quiver, thank god, but his eyes were starting to well up. He wasn’t gonna cry. Not in front of the man who’d just done and _hit_ him.

“You think yer the only one with problems on my _ship_ , Boy?” Yondu barked. He stepped closer. Peter flinched, but Yondu did not raise his hand again. Kept his fists tight by his sides. “Kraglin’s _dyin’_ , ya ungrateful sh—”

“What?” Peter asked, choking on the word.

“Far as I know,” Yondu answered. There was a little twitch in Yondu’s mouth, dark circles under his eyes. But his words were clear. He didn’t waver, didn’t stutter. He spat out his threats in an even parcel. “So you best stuff that attitude now. I don’t wanna hear a peep outta you, Boy. I see you in the next cycle, that mark on yer face won’t be nothin’ more than a dream.”

Peter watched Yondu turn out of Oblo and Scrote’s near-dead M-ship, stomping off presumably to check in on Kraglin.

Who was dying.

Dying. Like….

But, like, _dying._

Peter’s throat tightened. This was all his fault! They had to go fly to that entry by the cliff and if he’d just found another way in, the ship wouldn’t have been hit by the boulder. Kraglin had been talking to him on the radio afterwards too. How badly had he been hurt? What about Tullk? When they were all talking over the radio, they had all that time and…he didn’t say. Not once. Not, “Pete, I’m real hurt.” Nothing.

There were plenty of places to hide on the Eclector. Obvious places, of course, like the vents, the supply closet, the engine room, or under his bed. And while holding up in his room sounded best—because then he could turn up the volume of his Walkman and sink into his bedding—he couldn’t face Yondu then. Especially if Kraglin ended up _dying_ and it was all his _fault_ and he’d be thrown off the ship and lose his family all over and—. No. No bed. No supply closet. He wanted somewhere safe and quiet, somewhere he knew. And while they hadn’t flown back in it, Yondu’s ship was in the hangar bay, same as always. Peter snuck on board, found some of the old junk Yondu kept there when Peter was sleeping on the ship during an especially long run to a planet, and curled up into it like a nest. He’d grabbed the toy off the shelf to fiddle with. His hands felt electrified and he wanted to ground them. They were plain _numb_ when he spotted the bloody table.

“He didn’t say,” Peter whispered and wiped his cheek again. “He coulda, but he didn’t. And…now?” Everything he had kept back, everything that had been dammed up in front of Yondu, it all started coming out of him. Heavy tears, snot bubbles, a keening wail, all of it just exploded out of him and he collapsed onto his knees, holding himself together as he fell apart.

*

“Don’tchu _ever_ do that again,” said Yondu, every bit sincere in his rage as he was in his concern. “You hear me?”

Kraglin’s eyes twitched a little and he leaned towards that raspy voice of his captain. His whole body was hurting something fierce, like he’d been pressed through metal rollers before someone went and shot him in his damn guts. He didn’t need the air mask snapped down on his face anymore, which was a sight better. The thing made his mouth and nose feel all hot and sweaty. He wanted to sleep. He was just so damn exhausted. But his captain was nearby and just listening to the old damn fool fawn over him made his stomach feel all jittery. That, or the shrapnel what had been removed and the stitches laced up his side now. Probably fucked up some of the ink there. He felt a little bad about that.

“S-Sir?” someone said clear across the med bay.

“ _What_?” Yondu snapped. Made Kraglin smile a little at the sound.

“Well, s-s-s-sssir, I-I-I—”

Rubero would be tripping over his words all the way to Xandar. Nobody paid much mind to it; they waited for him to find his way to the end of the sentence, but Yondu didn’t have that kinda patience. Not now. His captain made a clicking sound, something crisp, before he grunted with the effort of getting outta his chair. He was gonna leave. Had to, honestly. Captain’s work was never done. But the absence there beside his bed felt deep and dark and lonely.

Kraglin put all his might into that skinny little arm of his and reached out. While it felt as heavy as moving mountains, all he did was graze Yondu’s arm. Barely fingered some of the leather of his coat. He was almost certain his captain didn’t even feel it. If he had the fluids and the energy, he might’ve let something like a tear slip out, but he felt plain dead. Besides, it was only cause he was delirious he even thought about showing such an obviously pitiful conniption. Kraglin let his head sink into the pillow, slipping into the dark like one slips into water.

Same as one might, say, slip a hand into yer own.

Same as one might, say, slip a quick kiss to yer forehead.

“I should try dying more,” Kraglin said with a heavy rasp, his voice rusty from disuse and tremendous effort. He still didn’t try opening his eyes; damn lids felt bruised. But it was nice, all the same.

“You do and I’ll kill ya,” said Yondu, who’d come back into the room as quiet as a shadow. But he said it softly, right there near Kraglin’s face.

“I’m sure,” said Kraglin and laughed, coughing through most of it.

“I’m still yer captain, Kraggles.”

“Yes…sir.”

“You get some sleep, then,” said his captain and gave him a gentle pat on the hand. Kraglin squeezed tight as he could on those fingers, even though that weren’t a grip at all. “I’ll be here when ya wake up, ya idiot.”

“Okay.” Kraglin worked something outta his throat, before he added, “Okay, sir.”

*

Grief’s a thing that really weighs someone down, but Peter was friggin’ ten years old, and his stomach found a way to betray him. He’d cried himself into a real stupor there on Yondu’s ship, sleeping a little in his nest amongst all Yondu’s weird little alien toys and such, but, eventually, he had to go and get something from the mess hall. He was careful about getting out of the M-ship, slipping his way across the hangar, low to the ground like some feral cat. Even that got tiring, though, and he eventually started strolling down the hallways. He had his hands in his pockets, headphones wrapped around his neck. He strained his hearing, making sure that _if_ Yondu was coming down the hallway, then _he_ could high-tail it in the opposite direction.

But it wasn’t the Centaurian who caught him. No, Peter was kicking a piece of debris across the grated floor when Oblo skipped into view and shouted, “Oh hey! Pete!”

“Oh god, _what_ , Oblo? What’d I do?”

“Uh,” said Oblo, and raked his long hair outta his eyes. “Nothin’, so far. We’ve been looking for you.”

“’We?’”

Tullk appeared behind the tall Krylorian, his accusing finger a spear headed straight for Peter’s head. “You!”

“Yeah, me,” said Peter, who started to back up just a little. “What’d I _do_?”

“We’ve been lookin’ for ya,” said Tullk, stalking down the hallway and grabbing Peter’s coat by the shoulder. “Capt’n wants a word with ya.”

“Okay, uh, no.” Peter wrenched his arm free of Tullk’s grip. “No, Tullk, okay? Yondu said he didn’t wanna see me.”

“And I’ve orders to bring ya to ‘im.”

“Why? What’s he gonna do?” Peter leapt out of Tullk’s reach again, poised to take off down the hallway. As far as he could tell, nobody was behind him, but he was too afraid to look and risk having Tullk scoop him off the floor. “Look, I know Kraglin’s hurt, okay? I know. And…I know…I know it’s my _fault_ , and….” Peter quickly dashed his palms across his eyes. He figured he had wrung himself out, but, apparently there was still some salt in him left to cry.

“Fault?” Tullk asked, flinching away from the boy. “Weren’t yer fault. Weren’t nobody’s fault. He just done got hurt, Peter, ay? It happens. It’s a tough life out ‘ere in the void. But Kraglin? Well, he’s a tough lad, too.”

“But Yondu said.” Peter wiped his face again. His voice was all tight and starting to crack a little. “Yondu said he’s…y’know, he’s….”

“Come with me then,” said Tullk, slowly walking over to him. He didn’t put a hand on Quill. He just stood there, waiting. “We’ll go see, huh? How’s that?”

Peter still took a step back, staring watery-eyed up at Tullk. He looked around him, down the long, _long_ hallway and the low orange light that lit it. Maybe Yondu wouldn’t be too mad if he came with other Ravagers.

“We’ll go see Kraglin?” Peter asked, wiping a streak of snot across the forearm of his coat.

“Sure,” said Tullk. “Come on.”

He held out his hand to the boy, despite how leaky he was and everything. Peter gladly took Tulk’s hand. Then, as he was passing, he hooked Oblo as well, and they trailed together towards the med bay.

“I mean,” Oblo started, once they were all moving, “Yondu’s there with Kraglin anyhow, so. Saves us a trip, doesn’t it?” Oblo laughed, even with Tullk glaring over at him and Peter starting to tremble. They both had a hold of the boy so he couldn’t get out of their grasp if he wanted.

*

There’s no use trying to sharpen a knife on the whet stone while Kraglin had his fingers intertwined there with Yondu’s. Meant he just had to sit there and wait. Yondu leaned back in the chair, hefting one foot up onto the edge of the bed, and rocked a little to no particular rhythm. He could’ve easily let go soon as he was sure Kraglin was sleeping, but he was a man of his word. He’d be there when his first mate was awake. Holding his hand was just bonus for waiting.

So, while one hand was occupied, the other was free. Yondu reached into his jacket and fished out that ugly crystal Quill had taken from Gor’Tun’s vault. The second his fingers touched it, he felt a dull zap surge across his skin, like the crystal was vibrating too fast for him to hold on. But he did. Gripped it there in his hand and glared at its dull surface, daring it to try anything else.

“What’s that, Capt’n?”

Yondu looked up to see Tullk and Oblo coming into the med bay. Yondu didn’t flinch. He didn’t drop his boot to the floor or leap outta his chair. Frozen hells, he didn’t even let go of Kraglin’s hand. Seemed they would’ve been hypocrites to say something when they was holdin’ onto Quill between them.

“None a ya damn business,” said Yondu with a flippant flick of his head. “What’s that ya brought me?”

“Is he gonna make it?” Peter asked as he let go of Tullk and Oblo’s hands.

“Sure will,” said Yondu and worked his tongue into the crevice of one of his teeth. There was something stringy stuck between them. “You’ve been hidin’ in my M-ship again?”

“How’d you know?” Quill asked. Tullk’s face said he was thinking the same thing.

“Cause these fools never did find ya while I was in here watching after Kraglin. How many times I gotta tell you, Boy, I know ever scrap inch of this ship.”

“Yeah,” said Peter with a whine. “I guess.”

Yondu got the stringy piece of meat out and chewed it thoughtfully while looking down at his youngest Ravager. There weren’t no mark there on his face anymore. Maybe just a bit of red, but the boy had clearly been bawling his eyes out. His eyes were all puffy and whatnot. Yondu would make fun of him for it, just to toughen him up, but he didn’t have much heat left in him then. Instead, he nodded at the other two Ravagers and hooked his fist to the chair opposite him.

“Thank you, boys,” said Yondu to Tullk and Oblo’s backs. “And make sure nobody comes to bother us.” Then, when he looked back to Peter, he said, “Siddown, son, so’s I can actually _look_ at ya.”

Peter reluctantly went over to the chair on the other side of Kraglin’s bed and pulled it up closer, climbing into it. He looked down at Kraglin like he thought the Xandarian might break.

“You did good,” said Yondu at last, looking back at the crystal. “Got the Iv’ro Lan, just like I asked.”

“Yeah,” Peter answered distantly. “He looks so…pale.”

“He’s fine,” said Yondu with a drawl. “He’s sleeping.”

“Yeah.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, Peter reached across the mattress and took Kraglin’s other hand in his. He held on very gently, making sure not to disturb the tube that ran from Kraggle’s forearm to the IV bag hooked overhead. Yondu was sure that Kraglin woulda jerked his hand back quicker than fire if he were awake, but it felt nice to have someone else holding vigil with him. He didn’t smile or nothing to give it away, but Yondu sat back again, flipping the crystal in his hand.

“We’re takin’ this all the way to Nova Prime,” said Yondu, more to the crystal than to Peter. “Seems its mighty important to them Xandarians there. Gonna give my faction a pardon, so’s we can finally deal again in Xandarian space. Been too long I’ve been able to check in with The Broker.”

“Sure,” said Peter, who wasn’t paying attention.

“You’ll see,” said Yondu. He flipped the crystal again, let it sail across the top of his hand and whip around to the other side without dropping it once. “Might even let ya fly the ship while we’re waiting to meet.”

“Your ship?” Peter asked, perking up. Now _that_ made Yondu smile.

“I knew that’d get yer attention.”

“Do you promise?” Peter asked.

Yondu just shrugged, twirling the crystal over his fingers. “We’ll see,” he said, and laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it mush? Sure. But I wanted some goddamn mush, folks. I got two quick kisses in this fic, so, I'm pretty happy with it. We have one more chapter where they deliver the Iv'ro Lan to Nova Prime and get on with their lives.


	10. A Pardon Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Delivery of the Iv'ro Lan goes all well and for once Yondu is well and truly happy.

“We need this.” Yondu sneered, hand flat across the holster to his yaka arrow.

“You know it’s a fool’s run,” Kraglin answered. He had sense to look aloof about it, leaning over to his captain with a staged whisper, even with the restraints tight around his wrists. There was still some bruising under his eyes. He slouched. His voice warbled if he weren’t thinking too hard, but Kraglin was back. On his feet and everything. “You _know_ it’s pretty much a dead ringer suicide mission.”

“Still need the damn converter.”

“I can getcha  yer converter, sir.”

“Feel like I’m just talkin’ circles with ya, Kraggles,” said Yondu. He tested the strength of his manacles once more. “We’ve done this dance before.”

“You gonna take me dancin’ when this’s all over?” Kraglin crowed next to him. Yondu glared from his side. Woulda made a quick obscene gesture, but he forked his tongue into the side of his mouth and kept it shut. Maybe they _would_ go dancing. Somewhere there were plenty of loose pockets and strobe lights to distract. “Sir,” said Kraglin again as he leaned in close. “Can ya just say yer jealous already or what?”

“Never,” Yondu answered as he lifted his chin, looking very much in control despite the armed guards what were taking him into the tall spire of the Xandarian headquarters of the Nova Corp.

There were three guards on either side of them. Six men didn’t seem like enough protection, but perhaps Irani Rael was showing some leniency since he’d brought with him her precious little artifact. Like having three men was some kinda gratitude or something. They done showed up soon as Yondu’s M-ship touched Xandar and put the manacles on their wrists while reading rights and all. Pretty efficient. Looked like Nova Corp was ticking along just fine with their new Nova Prime. They done picked a fine one to fill the role.

Yondu knew Rael from the Battle of Espil. The Ravagers were there to take out Kree fanatics and, at the time, Admiral Rael was leading her troops through a presumed massacre. Nova Corp had lost men, Kree had lost men, and Yondu was just there on happenstance. Heard the rumblings through the waves, figured there might be something to salvage off Espil once it was all said and done.  At the time of the battle, Yondu had only to convince his crew on the merits of beheading a bunch of Kree—who couldn’t ask for more, honestly. Picking up scraps, cargo, some Kree tech the Doc figured would be useful. It helped. Nova Corp, battered as they were, managed to pull ahead, no thanks to aid from Stakar Ogord’s protégé. Espil was back under Nova Corp command after and the rest had become Xandarian history.

“How you likin’ yer new Nova Prime?” Yondu asked the guard to his left. “She got a rod up her ass the size of my fist, I reckon.” Yondu laughed, but the guard didn’t deign a response. “So do you, looks of it. Kraggles, you see these pricks?”

“I ain’t lookin’ at nobody’s prick, sir,” said Kraglin, chin jutted forward as he took in the design of the ceiling. “So’s yer not jealous.”

“I _ain’t_ jealous,” said Yondu.

“Yondu Udonta and company. Right this way, sir,” said one of the Nova officers, leading them along through an open doorway.

The observatory room was huge. High vaulted ceilings and clear windows wrapping around the perimeter made it look more open than it was. Whole thing was bright light and delicate glass. It hurt enough that Yondu had to squint, just a little, but he didn’t dare throw his arm up over his eyes when they waltzed in. Kraglin made a sound, probably reeling from the same illuminated onslaught. They were far more suited to the Eclector’s dimly lit hallways and the expanse of void amongst the stars.

“Captain Udonta,” came the familiar voice of Nova Corps former Admiral. “A pleasure.”

“I highly doubt that, Rael,” said Yondu with his eyes closed. He blinked before he looked over at Nova Prime. “You put on all yer floodlights for little ol’ me?”

“From my reports, your home world can be quite bright. The dual—”

“That ain’t home, Rael,” said Yondu and smiled, flashing as many of his capped metal teeth as he could. Kraglin scuffled in line next to him, offering the same Ravager grin.

“Perhaps,” said Nova Prime, nodding. She folded her hands in front of her, mirroring the stance of the two criminals before her, each of them standing resplendent in their uniforms. Sure, Yondu and Kraglin’s were covered in the wear and tear of battle, of space, of life, but it was still damn resplendent.

“I swear we heard there was gonna be a pardon for my Ravager clan once I handed you what you asked for.”

“Show me,” said Nova Prime, her eyes half-lidded as she lifted her chin ever so slightly and the light overhead played like solar fire in that overly coifed ‘do of hers.

Yondu didn’t say anything. He didn’t even reach for the crystal. He held out his hands, showing off the touch points of the ectromag manacles, waiting for someone to undo them. Irani blinked slowly, refusing to speed this along any, before she nodded at one of the guards nearby. He stepped forward and undid the restraints. Yondu rubbed his wrists, even though they weren’t any sore.

“The Iv’ro Lan?” asked Nova Prime.

“Do Kraggles, first,” said Yondu, pointing a thumb back at his first mate.

A sigh from Nova Prime before she nodded to the guard again. He hopped on over to Kraglin, who held out his wrists just the same, looking bored outta his goddamn mind. Good for him. If he felt bored now, surrounded by armed guards, then he was well and truly on the mend.

After Kraglin was free, Yondu fished out the crystal he’d stashed in his breast pocket. The thing made his fingers sing, just as it always did. Once it was out, Irani Rael reached for it, taking a step forward before Yondu held it up.

“Hold on,” he said, wrapping his fist tight around the dull crystal. “’Fore I hand this over and we seal the deal, I gotta question about this here artifact.”

Nova Prime clicked her tongue, nearly rolling her eyes in the back of her head as she planted her feet firmly. Mild nuisance at best. She wasn’t going to show off her real feelings till she had her title for a few lunar clicks, that’s fer damn sure. Good for her for keeping a strong face about it.

“It’s an ancient artifact,” she said, her voice only slightly laced with the full breadth of her annoyance.

“No, I get that. Xandarian?”

“No,” she answered. “Nor Kree. It comes before either.”

“Huh.” Yondu looked it over. He didn’t say, but when he flexed his forearm, it helped him from dropping the damn thing, since it was doing a number on the nerves in his hands. Like he’d ever let anyone know that, though. He was kinda waiting to see the look on Irani Rael’s face when she took it back. “And what’s it do, exactly?”

“It collects ever single strand of data ever presented to it,” said Nova Prime. She looked at the thing like it was glowing some holy kinda light. “It has infinite knowledge, history, everything. Scientific discoveries. Advanced military weaponry blueprints. Codes. Languages. Civilian records from dozens of inhabited planets dating centuries. Art and music. The Nova Corp have been able to unlock one fifth of the information on the Iv’ro Lan in the last twenty-seven years.”

“And you just let the Kree walk out with it?”

“They did not just ‘walk out,’” said Nova Prime. Yondu noticed a little twitch there near her eye. She was just about done playing his game. “It was _stolen_ after the Kree elite discovered intel on unlocking some part of their stagnant genetic evolution. We believe—”

“You believe yadda yadda yadda,” said Yondu and finally tossed the Iv’ro Lan crystal.

Nova Prime swiftly activated a tripod she had been hiding in her hands, pulling the Iv’ro Lan into the electrified net where it hovered harmlessly in front of her. Didn’t even need to touch the damn thing. Yondu’s mouth turned down at the corners since he was cheated of seeing Irani Rael grapple with the thing. He didn’t dare shake out his hand to get the feeling of pins and needles outta his skin.

“I’d lock that thing up better than ya did before,” said Yondu, scowling at the tripod disk.

“We will,” said Nova Prime. She handed it to a soldier nearby. “We thank you for your services, Captain Udonta. You have saved the lives of billions of Xandarians by collecting that artifact.”

“Yeah.” Yondu scratched underneath his chin, running his long jagged nails up and down his neck in broad strokes. “S’pose I did. How we sealin’ our pardon? I gotta get back to my men before we get a fleet of yer precious Nova Corp men surrounding my ship to take ‘em in.”

“The pardon has already been sent out,” said Nova Prime with her little dignified as shit head nod. “Your names have been cleared and you may deal again in Xandarian space.”

“S’pect there’s a caveat somewhere in there?” asked Yondu.

“And I suspect you understand what that caveat is without my saying,” said Nova Prime.

Yondu gave her a quick, sloppy salute with his left hand, waiving two fingers her way as he pivoted towards the door. Kraglin was on his feet quick in the same breath.

“Sir,” he whispered, actually keeping it between the two of them this time, “I ain’t saying I wasn’t payin’ attention or nothin’, but what ‘caveat’ you two talkin’ about?”

“We’re expected to do nothin’ strictly _criminal_ ,” said Yondu, already out of the observatory room. He felt much more comfortable once they were in the slightly less bright hallways of Nova Corps outer station hallway. “Just means we don’t get caught.”

“Oh,” said Kraglin. “Well, sure. Why’d we wanna get caught anyhow?”

“’Cause it’s fun,” said Yondu. He hooked an arm around Kraglin’s neck, dragging him in step beside him with a quick yank. “Now, didn’t I say we’d go dancin’ or what?”

“I thought you was just bein’ funny, sir,” said Kraglin, his head tucked right near Yondu’s chest.

“Me too,” said Yondu with a quick, fiery laugh. “But let’s go get the boys and take ‘em out. We’ve earned it.”

They stalked outta Nova Corps’ building, standing in the busy Xandarian city with the breath and swagger of essentially free men. Any of the old contacts on Xandar were back as unrestricted game. Yondu wanted to see The Broker about any of his “high-end community” dealers. Always had neat shit to steal. There were a few others on the planet, meant a few wealthy pit stops before they went back to Eclector, which was waiting up there in the void. Nova Prime didn’t pay out in units, but lifting Yondu’s clan’s ban on Xandar already put them in a better position.

“We can go see Uprish about all that art we got outta Gor’Tun’s,” said Yondu as he slipped his hand to a more manageable hold on Kraglin’s neck. “That’d put us right to fixing up the ship.”

“I’ll send a call and see who’s comin’ planetside than, sir,” said Kraglin. He didn’t squirm outta Yondu’s reach any. Didn’t have the strength for it or was just enjoying the contact, Yondu couldn’t say.

The Captain’s M-ship was parked nearby with a little Terran tapping on the controls, just bouncing with the excitement of getting to fly once they were all done. They could see him there through the windshield. Peter stood up in the chair and waved down at Yondu and Kraglin there on the landing pad.

“Seven hells,” said Yondu, even though he was smiling bright. “I was gonna teach the kid how to fly.”

“Not on planet, I hope,” said Kraglin.

“We just got our pardon,” said Yondu. “I ain’t gonna get us banned by having the kid run my ship through all these shiny buildings. That’d be _criminal_ , Kraggles.”

He laughed again. Couldn’t help it. It came roaring outta Yondu easy as rain. He felt good. And not that he had much good to hold onto, he held onto this. Onto Kraglin at his side, just by the scruff of his neck, and the sight of Quill there bouncing in the captain’s seat. Sure, Yondu would cuff him on the ear for putting his boots on the chair, but that was only for later. For now, Yondu smiled, holding onto the moment like he had all the damn time in the world. They was all gonna go out somewhere, go dancin’, expel some steam, get their trades, earn their units, steal some shit. It was good. It glowed in his mind with something like love.

“But we’re taking Quill out dancin’ too,” said Yondu, laughing again when Kraglin groaned his protest. “That boy loves his music. He’d probably love to go out dancing.”

“Sir, that sounds plain awful.”

Nothing was getting to him then. Not then. Yondu just shook his first mate a little and said, “It sure does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyyyy, we finished up the Vault Job! I'm going to do a one-shot of teaching Peter to fly because I have some ideas of how well that's going to go down. But, still, thank you for coming along with me for this silly little ride. All her kudos and comments have warmed every corner of my little heart.


End file.
